Shelley and the Pursuit of KnowledgeMary Wollstonecraft Shelley, was the daughter of the radical feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and the political philosopher William Godwin, and the wife of the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Through these family affiliations, he also met Lord Byron, Samuel T. Coleridge, and other literary figures such as Charles and Mary Lamb. Surrounded by such influential literary and political figures of the Romantic Age, it is no surprise that as a teenager, at the age of 19, she wrote Frankenstein. Although a critical failure (British Critic, 1818 and Monthly Review, 1818), the novel never went out of print and has been translated into numerous languages. What is surprising, however, is the enormous body of knowledge contained in the novel. The novel contains references to the fields of literature, poetry, science, education, politics, history and mythology. How did such a young girl, living a life considered morally questionable by society and burdened by family and financial burdens, acquire such a vast amount of knowledge in all fields of study that encompassed the important issues of her time? Through examining Mary Shelley's biographical information and diary entries, we will be able to answer this question. Below, I also intend to highlight Mary Shelley's literary knowledge with particular attention to the works studied by the monster in relation to her origins as well as those of Mary Shelley. Mary Shelley was born into notoriety simply by being called Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. Her parents were well-known and somewhat suspect individuals due to their radical political beliefs and writings, such as Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women and Godwin's Inquiry Concerning the Nature of Political Justice. Mary Shelley's mother died of complications shortly after giving birth to Mary. The infamy of her existence was increased by her father's subsequent publication of the Memoirs of the Author of Women's Rights. In this work, William Godwin described many aspects of Mary Wollstonecraft's existence in great detail such as; her affair with an American and subsequent birth of an illegitimate daughter, her suicide attempts, and the fact that she was already pregnant with Mary when William Godwin married her. In our late 20th century sensibilities we may not approve of these behaviors, but we certainly don't consider them shocking or extraordinary. The events mentioned above, however, occurred in the late 1700s and were not morally acceptable, were repugnant to society's conventions, and certainly should not be discussed or published in a memoir..