Mary Shelley - St Peter's Church, Bournemouth, Dorset, UK
Posted by: Groundspeak Premium Member Dragontree
N 50° 43.225 W 001° 52.499
30U E 579414 N 5619338
The grave of Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, can be found in St Peter's churchyard.
Waymark Code: WMA075
Location: South West England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 10/25/2010
Published By:Groundspeak Premium Member rangerroad
Views: 5

The article on Wikipedia describes this famous author, an extract of which is below:

'Mary Shelley (née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin, and her mother was the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft.

Mary Shelley's last years were blighted by illness. From 1839, she suffered from headaches and bouts of paralysis in parts of her body, which sometimes prevented her from reading and writing. On 1 February 1851, at Chester Square, she died at the age of fifty-three from what her physician suspected was a brain tumour. According to Jane Shelley, Mary Shelley had asked to be buried with her mother and father; but Percy and Jane, judging the graveyard at St Pancras to be "dreadful", chose to bury her instead at St Peter's Church, Bournemouth, near their new home at Boscombe. On the first anniversary of Mary Shelley's death, the Shelleys opened her box-desk. Inside they found locks of her dead children's hair, a notebook she had shared with Percy Bysshe Shelley, and a copy of his poem Adonaïs with one page folded round a silk parcel containing some of his ashes and the remains of his heart.'

The nearby blue plaque on the entrance gate pier reads:

'In this
churchyard lie
the mortal remains of
Mary Shelley
Author of "Frankenstein"

Her father William
Author of "Political Justice"

Her mother Mary
Author of "The Rights of Women"

Her son Percy, Jane his wife
and the heart of
Percy Bysshe her husband
the poet'
Description:
In 1816, the couple famously spent a summer with Lord Byron, John William Polidori, and Claire Clairmont near Geneva, Switzerland, where Mary conceived the idea for her novel Frankenstein. The Shelleys left Britain in 1818 for Italy, where their second and third children died before Mary Shelley gave birth to her last and only surviving child, Percy Florence. In 1822, her husband drowned when his sailing boat sank during a storm in the Bay of La Spezia. A year later, Mary Shelley returned to England and from then on devoted herself to the upbringing of her son and a career as a professional author. The last decade of her life was dogged by illness, probably caused by the brain tumour that was to kill her at the age of 53.


Date of birth: 08/30/1797

Date of death: 02/01/1851

Area of notoriety: Literature

Marker Type: Headstone

Setting: Outdoor

Visiting Hours/Restrictions: None

Fee required?: No

Web site: [Web Link]

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