Helen Plum Library

A guide to writing about Shelley's novel offers instructions for composing different types of essays and contains literary criticism, analysis, and suggested essay topics

We know the facts of Mary Shelley's life in some detail--the death of her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, within days of her birth; the upbringing in the house of her father, William Godwin, in a house full of radical thinkers, poets, philosophers, and writers; her elopement, at the age of seventeen, with Percy Shelley; the years of peripatetic travel across Europe that followed. But there has been no literary biography written this century, and previous...

"Moments of great intensity in the lives of Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, and Joan of Arc, when each faced a decision that would shape her legacy. When Jane Austen's father deeded the family home to her brother, Jane was tossed to the winds, no money to her name, probably too old to be wed. At this bleak moment, she receives a proposal of marriage from a rich but boring man. Midnight takes us to the hour of her decision: between financial security and...

Mary Shelley, Emily Brontë, George Eliot, Olive Schreiner and Virginia Woolf: they all wrote dazzling books that forever changed the way we see history. In "Outsiders", award-winning biographer Lyndall Gordon shows how these five novelists shared more than talent. In a time when a woman's reputation was her security, each of these women lost hers. They were unconstrained by convention, writing against the grain of their contemporaries, prophetically...

"London, 1814: Mary Godwin and her stepsister Jane Clairmont, both sixteen, possess quick minds bolstered by an unconventional upbringing, and have little regard for the rules that other young ladies follow. Mary, whose mother famously advocated for women's rights, rejects the two paths that seem open to her-that of an assistant in her father's bookshop, or an ordinary wife. Though quieter and more reserved than the boisterous Jane, Mary's imagination...

"The Wollstonecraft detectives (Mary Shelley & Ada Lovelace) tackle their second case, this time involving a horrible hospital, a missing will, a hasty engagement and a client who can't be trusted"--

When a dinosaur fossil hunter is blackmailed by kidnappers who need her to fake a validation in return of her beloved pooch, Ada and Mary are given three days to find the offenders and save the scientist's reputation

"Your favorite characters are now part of the Who HQ library! One of the most iconic monsters of all time comes to life in our What Is the Story Of? series. From his origins in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, through his many movie portrayals in the twentieth century, Frankenstein is one of the most recognizable characters in the world. His iconic look is a go-to Halloween costume for kids and adults alike. But how did the mad scientist and his creation...

Each volume provides discussions of the literary and historical background of novels from various cultures and time periods. Includes concise synopses of plot, characters and themes, a brief author biography, discussion of the story's cultural and historical significance, and excerpted criticism.