Mathilda (1959) is a posthumous novella by English writer and Romantic
Mary Shelley. Written as a means of self-distraction following the
deaths of her young children in Italy, Mathilda is a work haunted by
tragic loss. Unpublished for over a century, its posthumous appearance
helped cement Shelley's reputation as a leading Romantic, an artist
unafraid of confronting such themes and taboos as incest and suicide in
her work.
Mathilda, named after its narrator, traces a young woman's troubled
life from birth to her premature deathbed. Following her mother's death
during childbirth and her father's subsequent abandonment, Mathilda is
raised by her aunt in rural Loch Lomond, Scotland. A gifted reader and
promising intellectual, she rises from her difficult circumstances to
lead a relatively happy childhood. When, at the age of 16, her father
reenters her life, the two reconnect and eventually move together to
London. As she begins to receive suitors however, her father's strange
jealousy and irrational behavior conceal a terrible secret. When he
reveals his incestuous desires to Mathilda, she rejects him, resulting
in his suicide and leaving her unmarried, orphaned, and financially
unstable. Living in self-imposed exile, she befriends the similarly
melancholy Woodville, a young widower and poet who does his best to care
for her despite her crushing bouts of depression and frequent suicidal
thoughts. Mathilda is an emotionally complex and ultimately difficult
novella recognized for its controversial themes and for its parallels to
Shelley's own tragic life.
With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript,
this edition of Mary Shelley's Mathilda is a classic of English
literature reimagined for modern readers.
