Mathilda (Paperback)

Paperback. Mary Shelleys Mathilda, the story of one womans existential struggle after learning of her fathers desire for her, has been identified as Shelleys most important work after Frankenstein. The two texts share many characteristics, besides authorship and contemporaneity: both concern parental abandonment; both contribute to the Gothic form through themes of incest, insanity, suicidality, monstrosity, and isolation; and both are epistolary. However, Mathilda was not published until 1959, 140 years after Shelley wrote itin part because Shelleys father, William Godwin, suppressed it. This new edition encourages a critical reconsideration of a novella that has been critically stereotyped as biographical and explores its importance to the Romantic debate about suicide.Historical appendices trace the connections between Mathilda and other works by Shelley and by her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, while also providing biographical documents, contemporary works on the theme of incest, and documents on suicide in the Romantic era.For Michelle Fauberts transcription of Mathilda for the Shelley-Godwin Archive, click here. Mary Shelleys Gothic novella was not published for 140 years after she wrote it; this new edition brings together an authoritative text and a selection of biographical and cultural documents. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. …