Mary Shelley's Journal

I know that Shelley’s life does not really matter that much in terms of reading Mathilda, but I was curious anyways as to what Mary Shelley actually wrote about the death of her children so I went to the library to do some research on the background of the Shelleys and I found a copy of their journal. It’s pretty interesting especially when Mary talks about Maie, her first daughter who died because she talks about her very briefly. On March 6^th, 1815, she writes: “Find my baby dead. Send for Hogg. Talk. A miserable day. In the evening read ‘Fall of the Jesuits.’ Hogg sleeps here” (39). Her sadness continues into other passages:

“Monday, March 13. Shelley and Clara go into town. Stay at home; net, and think of my little dead baby. This is foolish I suppose; yet whenever I am left alone to my own thoughts, and do not read to divert them, they always come back to the same point – that I was a mother, and am so no longer.” (40).

Her entries sometimes are very brief and sometimes her thoughts about her baby are mixed together with things that she does that day. Another entry I found interesting was this one:

“Sunday. Mar. 19. Dream that my little baby came to life again; that it had only been a cold, and that we rubbed it before the fire, and it lived. Awake and find no baby. I think about the little thing all day. Not in good spirits.” (41).

Later on when she talks about Clara’s death, she says even less: “On Thursday [September 24], I go to Padua with Clare; meet Shelley there. We go to Venice with my poor Clara, who dies the moment we get there” (105). She says almost nothing the days following this event.

So, I have it checked out right now but I’ll check it back in after a couple of days if anyone wants to read it.

On another note, I found this website that might be useful that has a lot of links to authors. It’s written by Jack G. Voller, a professor at Southern Illinois University: http://www.litgothic.com/index_fl.html

References:

Ed. Jones, Frederick. Mary Shelley’s Journal. University of Oklahoma Press. Norman, Oklahoma. Copyright 1947.