SOURCE: “Writing and Re-writing Incest in Mary Shelley's Mathilda,” in Keats-Shelley Journal, Vol. XLV, 1996, pp. 44-60.

In the following essay, Garrett traces the development of Mathilda's text, proposing that Shelley uses this work to critique women's education and experience.

I

Mary Shelley's second work of fiction, written in 1819 but not published until 1959, was a “tale” she eventually titled Mathilda. This novella has received relatively little critical attention, and, for the most part, analyses have been directed to the autobiographical or psychological significance of the work. Elizabeth Nitchie, editor of the first published version, read the story of Mathilda, her father, and Woodville the poet as versions of Mary Shelley herself, her father, William Godwin, and Percy Shelley.¹ More recent critics have found in the narrative evidence of Mary Shelley's critique of her relationship with both her husband and her father.² Mary Poovey, in an assessment of Mary...