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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley manuscript material
1815-1850 D
OVERVIEW DETAILED DESCRIPTION PRINTABLE (PDF) VERSION CONTACT THE DIVISION
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Collection Overview
Scope and arrangement
Administrative information
Key terms
Using the collection
D
Portions of this
collection are digitized.
Creator
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 1797-1851
Call number
Pforz MS
Physical description
421 items
Langu
age
English
Preferred Ci
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley manuscript material, Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of
Shelley and His Circle, The New York Public Library
Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
Restricted access. Request access to this collection.
Portions of this collection have been digitized and are available online.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, the English novelist. Best known as the author of Frankenstein, she
also wrote short-stories, poetry, biographies, journal articles, reviews, and edited the works of her
husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley. This guide lists and describes the manuscript materials held by
the Pforzheimer Collection that were created by Mary Shelley, including original holograph
writings and letters, amanuensis work in her hand, and her transcripts of work by others.
SCOPE AND ARRANGEMENT
The Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley manuscript material in the Pforzheimer Collection consists of
writings, correspondence, and transcripts. The writings include drafts of poems ("The Choice" and
"To the Dead") and several short stories ("The Sisters of Albano", "The Dream", "Transformation",
and others). The bulk of the correspondence dates from between 1822-1849. Correspondents
include Claire Clairmont, her stepsister; Leigh Hunt, the journalist and critic; Lord Byron's last
mistress, the Countess Teresa Guiccioli; Edward Moxon, the publisher and poet; and over
seventy-five others. The transcripts are chiefly comprised of her handwritten copies of letters
originally by her husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Manuscripts published in Betty T. Bennett's Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley; in
supplements to Bennett from The Keats-Shelley Journal; in Frederick L. Jones's Letters of Percy
Bysshe Shelley; or in Shelley and his Circle are noted with reference.
The Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley manuscript material is arranged in four series:
o Series I. Writings
o Series II. Correspondence
o Series III. Amanuensis work
o Series IV. Transcripts in Mary Shelley's hand
ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION
CUSTODIAL HISTORY
The first Mary Shelley manuscripts added to the Pforzheimer Collection were from the 1920 sale
of the library of H. Buxton Forman, the Shelley bibliographer. Regular acquisitions over the next
four decades, mostly through auction, led to an accumulation of over 300 items in Mary Shelley's
hand by the time of Carl H. Pforzheimer's death in 1957.
In the following years, under the auspices of the Pforzheimer Library, the Collection acquired over
fifty more Mary Shelley manuscripts, including a number of letters to Byron's last mistress, Teresa
Guiccioli, as well as Mary Shelley's annotated proof copy of the second edition of P. B. Shelley's
Poetical Works. Since the Collection's move to The New York Public Library in 1986, over thirty
Mary Shelley manuscripts have been accessioned.
PROCESSING INFORMATION
Compiled by Charles Cuykendall Carter and Clare Olivia Needham.
SEPARATED MATERIAL
In addition to manuscripts in Mary Shelley's hand, the Pforzheimer Collection holds a significant
amount of manuscript materials relating to her. Among the Collection's manuscript
correspondence addressed to her are letters by such figures as the Irish songwriter Thomas
Moore; the American writer Washington Irving; and her father, the English writer William Godwin.
Also held is an anonymous Italian translation, ca. 1840, of her short story, "The Dream" (S'ANA
1049).
Various early editions of nearly all of Mary Shelley's published works are available, including
three first edition copies of Frankenstein. A secondary collection, tracing the cultural trajectory of
Frankenstein, includes later 19th century and 20th century editions of the book, as well as comic
book and illustrated adaptations, video recordings, and other memorabilia. A growing number of
Mary Shelley-related prints and other visual material are also available, including an original
scratchboard portrait by Mark Summers, and oil portraits of William Shelley (by Amelia Curran)
and Mary Wollstonecraft (by John Keenan after John Opie).
Additional Mary Shelley manuscripts can be found in the Library's Berg Collection and
Manuscripts and Archives Division.
KEY TERMS
NAMES
o Ackermann, Rudolph, 1764-1834 (Addressee)
o Badams, Louisa Holcroft, 1806- (Addressee)
o Baxter, William Thomas, 1771-1842 (Addressee)
o Bentley, Richard, 1794-1871 (Addressee)
o Booth, Isabella Baxter, 1795-1863 (Addressee)
o Bowring, John, 1792-1872 (Addressee)
o Brown, Charles Armitage, 1786-1842 (Addressee)
o Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, 1788-1824 (Addressee)
o Campbell, Thomas, 1777-1844 (Addressee)
o Caunter, Hobart, 1794-1851 (Addressee)
o Chorley, William Brownsword, 1804-1879 (Addressee)
o Clairmont, Claire, 1798-1879 (Addressee)
o Claris, John Chalk, 1797?-1866 (Addressee)
o Clint, Helena, 1778 or 1779-1846 (Addressee)
o Colburn, Henry, -1855 (Addressee)
o Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834 (Addressee)
o Cooper, Thomas Abthorpe, 1776-1849 (Addressee)
o Cornwall, Barry, 1787-1874 (Addressee)
o Dawkins, Edward James, 1792-1865 (Addressee)
o Freire-Marreco, Antonio Joaquim, 1787-1850 (Addressee)
o Gaskell, Mary Heywood, 1785-1848 (Addressee)
o Gibson, S. A. Milner (Susannah Arethusa Milner), 1814-1885 (Addressee)
o Gisborne, Maria, 1770-1836 (Addressee)
o Godwin, Mary Jane (Addressee)
o Godwin, William, 1756-1836 (Addressee)
o Godwin, William, 1803-1832 (Addressee)
o Guiccioli, Teresa, contessa di, 1800-1873 (Addressee)
o Hamilton, S. (Samuel) (Addressee)
o Hammond, Marianna (Addressee)
o Harrington, Elizabeth William Stanhope, Countess of, 1808?-1898 (Addressee)
o Hays, Mary, 1759 or 1760-1843 (Addressee)
o Hayward, A. (Abraham), 1801-1884 (Addressee)
o Hazlitt, William, 1811-1893 (Addressee)
o Hessey, J. A. (James Augustus), 1785-1870 (Addressee)
o Hogg, Thomas Jefferson, 1792-1862 (Addressee)
o Hunt, Leigh, 1784-1859 (Addressee)
o Hunt, Marianne, 1788-1857 (Addressee)
o Jerningham, Charles William Edward, 1805-1854 (Addressee)
o Kenney, James, 1780-1849 (Addressee)
o Kenney, Louisa, 1777 or 1778-1853 (Addressee)
o Lardner, Dionysius, 1793-1859 (Addressee)
o Lewes, George Henry, 1817-1878 (Addressee)
o Macready, William Charles, 1793-1873 (Addressee)
o Mathews, Mrs. (Anne Jackson), 1782?-1869 (Addressee)
o Medwin, Thomas, 1788-1869 (Addressee)
o Meredith, Mary Ellen, 1821-1861 (Addressee)
o Morgan, Lady (Sydney), 1783-1859 (Addressee)
o Moxon, Edward, 1801-1858 (Addressee)
o Murchison, Charlotte, 1788-1869 (Addressee)
o Ollier, Charles, 1788-1859 (Addressee)
o Payne, John Howard, 1791-1852 (Addressee)
o Peacock, Thomas Love, 1785-1866 (Addressee)
o Perry, Erskine, Sir, 1806-1882 (Addressee)
o Phillips, R. (Richard), Sir, 1767-1840 (Addressee)
o Poole, John, 1786?-1872 (Addressee)
o Redding, Cyrus, 1785-1870 (Addressee)
o Reynolds, Frederic Mansel, -1850 (Addressee)
o Roberts, Daniel, 1789-1869 (Addressee)
o Robins, James, 1786 or 1787-1836 (Addressee)
o Robinson, Charles Barrington, 1812-1899 (Addressee)
o Rumble, Elizabeth, 1803?-1885 (Addressee)
o Severn, Joseph, 1793-1879 (Addressee)
o Shelley, Lady (Jane), 1820-1899 (Addressee)
o Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 1797-1851 (Addressee)
o Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792-1822
o Shelley, Percy Florence, Sir, 1819-1889 (Addressee)
o Smith, Eliza Sophia, 1811-1903 (Addressee)
o Spottiswoode, Andrew (Addressee)
o Stow, Martin, 1792-1824 (Addressee)
o Trelawny, Edward John, 1792-1881 (Addressee)
o Trevanion, Charlotte, 1797-1883 (Addressee)
o Vane, Diana Olivia, 1806-1875 (Addressee)
o Watts, Alaric Alexander, 1797-1864 (Addressee)
o Wedgwood, Josiah, 1769-1843 (Addressee)
o Williams, Jane, 1798-1884 (Addressee)
o Wollstonecraft, Everina, 1765-1843 (Addressee)
o Wood, Ann Rose, 1787-1867 (Addressee)
o Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley (Firm) (Addressee)
SUBJECTS
o Authors, English -- 19th century -- Correspondence
o English poetry -- 19th century -- Manuscripts -- Specimens
o Short stories, English -- 19th century -- Manuscripts -- Specimens
USING THE COLLECTION
LOCATION
Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York, NY 10018-2788
Third Floor, Room 319
ACCESS TO MATERIALS
Restricted access. Request access to this collection.
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