Biographical Notice preceding 'The Mortal Immortal' in The Casquet of Literature

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, born 1798; died in London, 1st February 1851. She was the daughter of William Godwin, the author of Caleb Williams, &c., and became the second wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley. During their residence on the banks of the Lake of Geneva in 1816, Byron, Shelley, and Mrs. Shelley agreed to beguile a rainy season by writing something in imitation of the weird German legends they had been reading. Mrs. Shelley produced Frankenstein, a romance, which, by its wildness and daring originality, obtained popularity at the date of its publication. She subsequently wrote: Valperga, or the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca; Lodore; The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck; The Last Man; Falkner-novels which are now little known. She also contributed to the annuals, &c., and published an edition of the works of Shelley with biographical preface and notes. The following is a specimen of Mrs. Shelley's eerie powers of imagination. (III, 353)

['The Mortal Immortal' was reprinted with the same biographical note in Charles Gibbon and Mary Elizabeth Christie, eds. The Casquet of Literature, being a Selection of Prose and Poetry from the Works of the Most Admired Authors, 6 vols. (London, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Dublin: Blackie & Son, Limited, 1896) III, 369-75].