Introduction - Page 2

effort was paradoxically successful, and, as publishers'
lists aver to this day, Frankenstein's monster has turned out to be
the hardest-lived specimen of the 'raw-head-and-bloody-bones' school
of romantic tales. So much, no doubt, to the credit of Mary Shelley.
But more creditable, surely, is the fact that she was not tempted, as
'Monk' Lewis had been, to persevere in those lugubrious themes.

Although her publishers--_et pour cause_--insisted on styling her 'the
author of Frankenstein', an entirely different vein appears in her
later productions. Indeed, a quiet reserve of tone, a slow, sober, and
sedate bearing, are henceforth characteristic of all her literary
attitudes. It is almost a case of running from one to the other
extreme. The force of style which even adverse critics acknowledged in
_Frankenstein_ was sometimes perilously akin to the most disputable
kinds of romantic rant. But in the historical or society novels which
followed, in the contributions which graced the 'Keepsakes' of the
thirties, and even--alas--in the various prefaces and commentaries
which accompanied the publication of so many poems of Shelley, his
wife succumbed to an increasing habit of almost Victorian reticence
and dignity. And those later novels and tales, though they sold well
in their days and were kindly reviewed, can hardly boast of any
reputation now. Most of them are pervaded by a brooding spirit of
melancholy of the 'moping' rather than the 'musical' sort, and
consequently rather ineffective as an artistic motive. Students of
Shelley occasionally scan those pages with a view to pick some obscure
'hints and indirections', some veiled reminiscences, in the stories of
the adventures and misfortunes of _The Last Man_ or _Lodore_. And the
books may be good biography at times--they are never life.

Altogether there is a curious contrast between the two aspects,
hitherto revealed, of Mary Shelley's literary activities. It is as if
the pulse which had been beating so wildly, so frantically, in
_Frankenstein_ (1818), had lapsed, with _Valperga_ (1823) and the
rest, into an increasingly sluggish flow.

The following pages may be held to bridge the gap between those two
extremes in a felicitous way. A more purely artistic mood, instinct
with the serene joy and clear warmth of Italian skies, combining a
good deal of youthful buoyancy with a sort of quiet and unpretending
philosophy, is here represented. And it is submitted that the little
classical fancies which Mrs. Shelley never ventured to publish are
quite as worthy of consideration as her more ambitious prose works.

For one thing they give us the longest poetical effort of the writer.
The moon of _Epipsychidion_ never seems to have been thrilled with the