Bad luck and strange circumstances set the stage for literature’s most famous vacation gone wrong—unseasonably cold weather and steady rain, a guest list filled with big names and bigger egos, complicated relationships and unrequited love. Stuck indoors for days on end, the caravan that had gathered at the grand Villa Diodati in Geneva in that summer of 1816 read old ghost stories. None of the tales were all that good, their host declared; surely his circle of morbid-minded creatives could do better.
And so there was a friendly competition, born of boredom, that introduced not one but two legendary monsters into the cultural zeitgeist. With The Vampyre, John William Polidori popularized a mythic beast that would later inspire Bram Stoker. And with Frankenstein, Mary Shelley dreamed up an undead creature who lumbers back to the big screen for the umpteenth time this month in Guillermo del Toro’s remake of her masterpiece.
Dr. Frankenstein’s “dreadful secret” is the creature he creates—different and unnatural, rejected by society and abandoned by its creator. In that way, he was a lot like Shelley herself. The creature yearns for love and companionship, no matter how taboo or grotesque to outsiders—also true of Shelley, who was at the center of an ever-expanding, increasingly tangled romantic and sexual web that looks a lot like contemporary polyamory. As del Toro’s take on her creation takes the screen, we peek into the Frankenstein author’s unconventional personal life with a guide to her big, fat messy and modern family tree.
Mary Godwin Shelley: Muse, Author, Mother, Breadwinner
Mary Shelley’s revolutionary mind and unconventional life echoed those of her equally radical parents: feminist pioneer Mary Wollstonecraft, a single mother and author of scandalous manifesto A Vindication of the Rights of Women; and political philosopher William Godwin, proponent of anarchy and free love who opposed rules, religion, and government. Neither believed in marriage, naturally, though they wed anyway to legitimize their daughters in conservative London society. But according to Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft & Mary Shelley, 10 days after Mary’s birth, Wollstonecraft died of a postpartum infection caused by her doctor’s unwashed hands.
A bereft Godwin remarried, with his new wife providing childcare he needed for infant Mary and toddler Fanny, Wollstonecraft’s eldest daughter. Their new stepmother was their neighbor Mary Jane Clairmont, a publisher with two (illegitimate) children of her own, Charles and Claire. A fifth child, little William, would complete the big blended Godwin family.
Of the many Godwin children, young Mary was the apple of her father’s eye. “She was sweet, beautiful, and absolutely brilliant,” says biographer Charlotte Gordon, author of Romantic Outlaws. In lieu of traditional education, Mary learned from daily tutoring and a revolving-door of modernist thinkers in her famous father’s social circle—among them William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Aaron Burr.
A published poet by age 10, Mary was dedicated and studious—but not particularly counterculture. “She was very much a good girl who wanted to please her father. Except in her case, that meant be radical, alternative, atheist, and bohemian,” says biographer Fiona Sampson, author of In Search of Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein. So when teenage Mary met her father’s new mentee and patron, she saw the moment—and seized it spectacularly.
Percy Bysshe Shelley: Aspiring Poet, Radical, and All-Around Bad Boyfriend
Twenty-one-year-old Percy Shelley was tall and handsome, with wavy dark hair and bright blue eyes. He was well-dressed and fashionable, hailing from an aristocratic family where he held the coveted position of eldest son. He studied classical literature and philosophy at Eton and Oxford, and aspired to be a romantic poet.
But Shelley was also married; his wife was pregnant with their second child. After being expelled from Oxford, he’d become estranged from his father and cut off from the family fortune. Still, the attraction was mutual and palpable; according to Romantic Outlaws, after a Godwin family dinner filled with lingering stares and sly smiles, he and Mary were enthralled with each other.
“Mary loves Percy because he’s just like her dad, and Percy falls in love with Mary because she’s her father’s daughter,” says Sampson. When her father learned of the relationship, he was horrified and furious; his ire grew when Shelley’s financial promises proved hollow. “Turns out he’s a notorious radical and advocate of free love—except when it comes to his own daughter,” she says. His opposition may have made Mary and Percy’s forbidden love all the more tantalizing, as it so often does.
Throughout the summer of 1814, Shelley and 16-year-old Mary met in secret at her mother’s gravestone in St Pancras Churchyard, according to Romantic Outlaws. Lore says she lost her virginity to him atop her mother’s grave, and somewhere near the end of the summer, Mary too fell pregnant. Fully aware that they’d be exiled forever from polite society, the couple packed their bags and eloped. They crossed the Channel to Calais, France, and then on to Germany and Holland. But travelling with them was an unlikely third party.
Claire Clairmont: Stepsister, Sister-Wife, Vintage Unicorn
Just eight months apart in age, Mary and Claire were frequently compared and set against each other. Mary was pale and red-headed; Claire was raven-haired with dark eyes. Mary was literary, while Claire was musical. The elder sister, Mary, was intellectual, while the younger was dramatic. Each daughter was favored by their biological parent.
Mary and Percy’s romance might not have sparked, in fact, without the initial presence of Claire. “Probably Claire already had a crush on Percy, so no wonder Mary went for him,” says Gordon. Exactly when Percy and Claire’s relationship became romantic is the subject of ongoing debate, but Gordon suspects that they may have been involved as early as his and Mary’s elopement. “It’s hard to imagine any other reason they’d invite her along,” she says.
The threesome lived and traveled together—by carriage, mule, and foot—on and off over the next few years, passing the evenings by reading aloud from Mary Wollstonecraft or their favorite contemporary poet, Lord Byron. Because all were avid diarists, confirmation of Claire and Percy’s relationship was likely documented—but crucial pages from the journals of Claire and Mary were later removed, Godwin writes, either by them or their descendants.
Many biographers believe those missing pages refer to an unfortunate predicament. In 1819, Mary was so furious with her sister that she referred to her in writing only as “his friend” or “the lady.” That same year, Mary wrote, Claire was hastily sent away to the English countryside. “She’s there just enough time to birth a baby,” notes Sampson, insinuating the same conclusion as Gordon: “In general, young girls like Claire made rural retreats like this only when pregnant.” The father, most likely, was Percy.
Lord Byron: Bohemian Poet, Bisexual Hedonist, Literary Lothario
No wonder this “league of incest and atheism,” as tabloids would call them, worshipped rock star poet Lord Byron. Like the Shelleys and Claire, he was also the object of rumors and gossip. He was accused of committing adultery with his own half-sister; similar to the Shelleys, he left England under duress. But the Shelleys had departed of their own accord; Gordon writes that Byron in part left England so he could pursue homosexual relationships, which were then punishable by death. Still, Claire wrote Byron countless fan letters, begging to meet him until she persuaded the throuple to join him on vacation to Geneva.
Baron George Gordon Byron had become an overnight literary sensation in 1812, and lived accordingly; he spent profligately, abused alcohol and opium, and fornicated indiscriminately with both men and women. Byron slept with Claire because she was there and willing, the biographers say. But why did Claire so desperately want to sleep with Byron? “I don’t think Claire knows about the gay stuff, and he has a reputation as a ladies’ man,” says Gordon. “For her, it’s like sleeping with Mick Jagger.” That her poet-boyfriend was more esteemed and famous than Mary’s was icing on the cake.
Neither woman suspected that their getaway’s central romance would, in fact, be the bromance between Percy and Byron. To be clear, it’s not certain that the two were physically romantic in Geneva: “Whether their genitals touched, I don’t know,” says Gordon. “But they’re fawning all over each other and their ideas.” Ignoring their relative partners, the men took day trips together, sailed and swam, had deep discussions about Napoleon. By the end of the vacation, Bryon was what Gordon calls “heartily sick” of Claire, who was also newly sick herself; she was pregnant with Bryon’s baby.
Dr. John William Polidori: Bryon’s Secretary, Companion, “Personal Physician”
Complicating matters further, Byron had traveled to Geneva with another guest: 21-year-old doctor John Polidori. “Bryon travels with a personal physician, like Michael Jackson,” explains Sampson. The pair’s relationship was volatile and complicated, and some modern-day scholars suspect the perpetually single doctor of being secretly in love with Bryon. Polidori not-so-subtly based the seductive blood-sucking aristocrat in his story, The Vampyre, on the poet. Three years later, the story was published under Byron’s byline.
At the Geneva villa, Byron and Percy mercilessly teased Polidori, giving him the effeminate nickname “Polly-Dolly.” To compensate, perhaps, Polidori wrote endlessly in his diary about Mary, for whom he dramatically jumped off a balcony and sprained his ankle. “Now Polidori’s in love with Mary per se, because really they’re all in love with Byron—except Mary, who’s busy with her six-month-old son and writing her masterpiece,” says Gordon. After shutting him down repeatedly, Mary would leave Geneva at the end of the summer and never again see Polidori—who never married, and died by suspected suicide five years after the trip. So too did Percy’s estranged wife, allowing the Shelleys to finally marry in 1816.
Edward and Jane Williams: Unmarried Couple, Probable Swingers
Frankenstein was published anonymously at first, then again in 1821 by “M.me Shelley”—a shocking abomination, to some, that a woman would write something so dark and grotesque. With Mary Shelley’s reputation at an all-time low, the entourage moved next to Italy. In a relatively small expat community, they met a couple about their age, Edward and Jane Williams. Like the Shelleys and company, their relationship was unconventional: “She’d left an abusive husband to be with Edward, so they weren’t actually married,” says Sampson. Also like many in the Shelleys’ cohort, the Williamses were already exiled—and therefore free to flaunt convention however they saw fit.
Slender and gorgeous, Jane was maternal and feminine, an excellent singer and flower arranger, enviable female skills in the 1820s. “Percy flirts mercilessly with Jane, of course, and writes her endless poems,” says Gordon. Edward did not particularly seem to mind; in fact, he appeared to enjoy Percy’s presence, the biographer says. Since they both loved to sail, Percy bought a skiff so they could take voyages together. As an ode to their friend Byron’s poem, they named their vessel Don Juan.
On a voyage home from Pisa in 1822, Percy and Edward were caught in a sudden thunderstorm. Ten days later, their bodies washed ashore, leaving Mary and Jane a pair of 25-year-old widows. Though both had opportunities to remarry, neither did in the following years. But their own friendship grew deeper—and probably romantic as well. “Being afraid of men, I was apt to get tousy-mousy for women,” Shelley wrote in 1835, using Victorian euphemisms that have convinced scholars of Shelley’s bisexuality. “I think Mary was a little bit gay, and also much gayer than she realized,” says Sampson. Gordon, too, finds it “hard to believe they weren’t bed together.”
Though today she’s been claimed as a queer icon, Mary Shelley might just as easily be embraced by the polyamorous community for her many overlapping and unconventional romances. Or not. “Modern polyamory is all about communications and boundaries,” says Sampson. Look closer at the torrid Shelley/Shelley/Byron/Clairmont/Polidori/Williams/Williams love heptagon, though, and “this is more like a couple of older hedonistic men getting whatever they can get.”
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