186-539: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley ( UK : / ˈ w ʊ l s t ən k r ɑː f t / ; née Godwin ; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction . She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley . Her father
372-695: A Nonconformist minister , moved the family to Debenham in Suffolk and later to Guestwick in Norfolk, which had a radical history as a Roundhead stronghold during the English Civil War . At the local meeting house , John Godwin often found himself sitting in " Cromwell 's Chair", which had been a gift to the town by the Lord Protector . William Godwin came from a long line of English Dissenters , who faced religious discrimination by
558-576: A West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic settlers from various parts of what is now northwest Germany and the northern Netherlands. The resident population at this time was generally speaking Common Brittonic —the insular variety of Continental Celtic , which was influenced by the Roman occupation. This group of languages ( Welsh , Cornish , Cumbric ) cohabited alongside English into
744-564: A pamphlet war , beginning with Edmund Burke 's publication of his Reflections on the Revolution in France , which defended traditionalist conservatism and opposed revolution. In response to Burke, Thomas Paine published his Rights of Man with the help of Godwin, who declared that "the seeds of revolution it contains are so vigorous in their stamina, that nothing can overpower them." But Godwin's voice remained largely absent from
930-761: A political journalist for the New Annual Register after being introduced to Georgie Robinson by Andrew Kippis . Godwin's work was then picked up by the Political Herald , where he wrote under the pseudonym of " Mucius " in order to attack the Tories . He subsequently reported on the Pitt ministry 's colonial rule in Ireland and India ; penned a history of the Dutch Revolt and predicted
1116-525: A treason trial of some of his fellow British Jacobins , among them Thomas Holcroft , Godwin wrote Cursory Strictures on the Charge Delivered by Lord Chief Justice Eyre to the Grand Jury, 2 October 1794 in which he forcefully argued that the prosecution's concept of "constructive treason" allowed a judge to construe any behaviour as treasonous. It paved the way for a major victory for
1302-507: A two-storey cottage at Bishopsgate , on the edge of Windsor Great Park . Little is known about this period in Mary Godwin's life, for her journal from May 1815 to July 1816 is lost. At Bishopsgate, Percy wrote his poem Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude ; and on 24 January 1816, Mary gave birth to a second child, William, named after her father, and soon nicknamed "Willmouse". In her novel ' The Last Man , she later imagined Windsor as
1488-659: A Garden of Eden. In May 1816, Mary Godwin, Percy Shelley, and their son travelled to Geneva with Claire Clairmont. They planned to spend the summer with the poet Lord Byron , whose recent affair with Claire had left her pregnant. In History of a Six Weeks' Tour through a part of France, Switzerland, Germany and Holland (1817), she describes the particularly desolate landscape in crossing from France into Switzerland. The party arrived in Geneva on 14 May 1816, where Mary called herself "Mrs Shelley". Byron joined them on 25 May, with his young physician, John William Polidori , and rented
1674-424: A bath of ice to stanch the bleeding, an act the doctor later told him saved her life. All was not well between the couple that summer, however, and Percy spent more time with Jane Williams than with his depressed and debilitated wife. Much of the short poetry Shelley wrote at San Terenzo involved Jane rather than Mary. The coast offered Percy Shelley and Edward Williams the chance to enjoy their "perfect plaything for
1860-501: A broad range of subjects. He often took the children on educational outings, and they had access to his library and to the many intellectuals who visited him, including the Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the former vice-president of the United States Aaron Burr . Godwin admitted he was not educating the children according to Mary Wollstonecraft's philosophy as outlined in works such as A Vindication of
2046-421: A celebrated north country apostle, who, after Calvin damned ninety-nine in a hundred of mankind, has contrived a scheme for damning ninety-nine in a hundred of the followers of Calvin." In 1771, Godwin was finally dismissed by Newton and returned home, but his father died the following year, which prompted his mother to urge him to continue his education. At seventeen years old, Godwin began higher education at
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#17327655592052232-559: A century as Received Pronunciation (RP). However, due to language evolution and changing social trends, some linguists argue that RP is losing prestige or has been replaced by another accent, one that the linguist Geoff Lindsey for instance calls Standard Southern British English. Others suggest that more regionally-oriented standard accents are emerging in England. Even in Scotland and Northern Ireland, RP exerts little influence in
2418-421: A corpse would be re-animated", Mary noted; " galvanism had given token of such things". It was after midnight before they retired, and unable to sleep, she became possessed by her imagination as she beheld the grim terrors of her "waking dream", her ghost story: I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on
2604-494: A course of reading and cultivated your mind in a manner the most admirably adapted to make you a great and successful author. If you cannot be independent, who should be?" — William Godwin to Mary Shelley After her husband's death, Mary Shelley lived for a year with Leigh Hunt and his family in Genoa , where she often saw Byron and transcribed his poems. She resolved to live by her pen and for her son, but her financial situation
2790-519: A creature & Shelley is afraid of a fever from the milk—for I am no longer a mother now. The loss of her child induced acute depression in Mary Godwin, who was haunted by visions of the baby; but she conceived again and had recovered by the summer. With a revival in Percy Shelley's finances after the death of his grandfather, Sir Bysshe Shelley, the couple holidayed in Torquay and then rented
2976-482: A critique of the state . Godwin acknowledged the influence of Burke for this portion. The rest of the book is Godwin's positive vision of how an anarchist (or minarchist ) society might work. Political Justice was extremely influential in its time: after the writings of Burke and Paine , Godwin's was the most popular written response to the French Revolution. Godwin's work was seen by many as illuminating
3162-404: A defining anarchist and libertarian text. By the words "political justice" the author meant "the adoption of any principle of morality and truth into the practice of a community," and the work was therefore an inquiry into the principles of society, government, and morals . For many years Godwin had been "satisfied that monarchy was a species of government unavoidably corrupt," and from desiring
3348-435: A government of the simplest construction, he gradually came to consider that "government by its very nature counteracts the improvement of original mind," demonstrating anti-statist beliefs that would later be considered anarchist . Believing in the perfectibility of the human race, that there are no innate principles, and therefore no original propensity to evil, he considered that "our virtues and our vices may be traced to
3534-508: A greater movement, normally [əʊ], [əʉ] or [əɨ]. Dropping a morphological grammatical number , in collective nouns , is stronger in British English than North American English. This is to treat them as plural when once grammatically singular, a perceived natural number prevails, especially when applying to institutional nouns and groups of people. The noun 'police', for example, undergoes this treatment: Police are investigating
3720-537: A happy one, and Mary Shelley and Jane were fond of each other. Mary lived with her son and daughter-in-law at Field Place, Sussex , the Shelleys' ancestral home, and at Chester Square , London, and accompanied them on travels abroad. 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
3906-877: A joint journal, and continued their own writing. At Lucerne , lack of money forced the three to turn back. They travelled down the Rhine and by land to the Dutch port of Maassluis , arriving at Gravesend, Kent , on 13 September 1814. The situation awaiting Mary Godwin in England was fraught with complications, some of which she had not foreseen. Either before or during the journey, she had become pregnant. She and Percy now found themselves penniless, and, to Mary's genuine surprise, her father refused to have anything to do with her. The couple moved with Claire into lodgings at Somers Town, and later, Nelson Square. They maintained their intense programme of reading and writing, and entertained Percy Shelley's friends, such as Thomas Jefferson Hogg and
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#17327655592054092-406: A lesser class or social status and often discounted or considered of a low intelligence. Another contribution to the standardisation of British English was the introduction of the printing press to England in the mid-15th century. In doing so, William Caxton enabled a common language and spelling to be dispersed among the entirety of England at a much faster rate. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of
4278-403: A limited annual allowance (which she had to repay when Percy Florence inherited the estate), but to the end of his days, he refused to meet her in person and dealt with her only through lawyers. Mary Shelley busied herself with editing her husband's poems, among other literary endeavours, but concern for her son restricted her options. Sir Timothy threatened to stop the allowance if any biography of
4464-428: A man in love with its author, this appears to me to be the book." When Godwin and Wollstonecraft were reintroduced in 1796, their respect for each other soon grew into friendship, sexual attraction, and love. Once Wollstonecraft became pregnant, they decided to marry so that their child would be considered legitimate by society. Their marriage revealed the fact that Wollstonecraft had never been married to Imlay, and as
4650-477: A marriage, then, and not till then, can I have any just reason to admit his doctrine of the geometrical ratio. In his first edition of Political Justice Godwin included arguments favouring the possibility of "earthly immortality" (what would now be called physical immortality ), but later editions of the book omitted this topic. Although the belief in such a possibility is consistent with his philosophy regarding perfectibility and human progress, he probably dropped
4836-472: A middle way between the fiery extremes of Burke and Paine. Prime Minister William Pitt famously said that there was no need to censor it, because at over £1 it was too costly for the average Briton to buy. However, as was the practice at the time, numerous " corresponding societies " took up Political Justice , either sharing it or having it read to the illiterate members. Eventually, it sold over 4000 copies and brought literary fame to Godwin. Godwin augmented
5022-515: A minister to become a writer . Throughout 1783, Godwin published a series of written works, beginning with an anonymously-published biography of William Pitt the Elder , followed by a couple of pro-Whig political pamphlets. He also briefly attempted to return to ministerial work in Beaconsfield , where he preached that " faith should be subordinated to reason ". A few months later, during
5208-560: A more comprehensive view of Shelley's achievements. Scholars have shown increasing interest in her literary output, particularly in her novels, which include the historical novels Valperga (1823) and Perkin Warbeck (1830), the apocalyptic novel The Last Man (1826) and her final two novels, Lodore (1835) and Falkner (1837). Studies of her lesser-known works, such as the travel book Rambles in Germany and Italy (1844) and
5394-399: A more rigorous intellectual experience than most women of her period, and describing her as "very intelligent". He wished to give his daughter a more "masculine education" and prepared her to be a writer. However, Godwin withdrew his support as Mary became a woman and pursued her relationship with Percy Bysshe Shelley . Mary's first two novels, Frankenstein and Mathilda , may be seen as
5580-477: A night what took him over a year to write. Not the least of its merits is a portrait of the justice system of England and Wales at the time and a prescient picture of domestic espionage. His literary method, as he described it in the introduction to the novel, also proved influential: Godwin began with the conclusion of Caleb being chased through Britain, and developed the plot backwards. Dickens and Poe both commented on Godwin's ingenuity in doing this. In response to
5766-560: 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. British English British English (abbreviations: BrE , en-GB , and BE ) is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland . More narrowly, it can refer specifically to
Mary Shelley - Misplaced Pages Continue
5952-418: A novel, which Godwin saw into print. All of Godwin's children who lived into adulthood worked as writers or educators, carrying on his legacy and that of his wives. Only two of them had children who in turn survived: Percy Florence Shelley , and the son and daughter of Charles. Godwin did not welcome the birth of Allegra Byron , but Claire's only child died aged five. Godwin had high hopes for Mary, giving her
6138-541: A paradise inhabited by devils, remain shrouded in mystery. The only certainty is that she herself was not the child's mother. Elena Adelaide Shelley died in Naples on 9 June 1820. After leaving Naples, the Shelleys settled in Rome, the city where her husband wrote "the meanest streets were strewed with truncated columns, broken capitals...and sparkling fragments of granite or porphyry...The voice of dead time, in still vibrations,
6324-470: A physician. In 1820, they found themselves plagued by accusations and threats from Paolo and Elise Foggi, former servants whom Percy Shelley had dismissed in Naples shortly after the Foggis had married. The pair revealed that on 27 February 1819 in Naples, Percy Shelley had registered as his child by Mary Shelley a two-month-old baby girl named Elena Adelaide Shelley. The Foggis also claimed that Claire Clairmont
6510-645: A police chief into seizing Gatteschi's papers, including the letters, which were then destroyed. Shortly afterwards, Mary Shelley bought some letters written by herself and Percy Bysshe Shelley from a man calling himself G. Byron and posing as the illegitimate son of the late Lord Byron . Also in 1845, Percy Bysshe Shelley's cousin Thomas Medwin approached her, claiming to have written a damaging biography of Percy Shelley. He said he would suppress it in return for £250, but Mary Shelley refused. In 1848, Percy Florence married Jane Gibson St John. The marriage proved
6696-659: A process called T-glottalisation . National media, being based in London, have seen the glottal stop spreading more widely than it once was in word endings, not being heard as "no [ʔ] " and bottle of water being heard as "bo [ʔ] le of wa [ʔ] er". It is still stigmatised when used at the beginning and central positions, such as later , while often has all but regained /t/ . Other consonants subject to this usage in Cockney English are p , as in pa [ʔ] er and k as in ba [ʔ] er. In most areas of England and Wales, outside
6882-405: A reaction to her childhood. Both explore the role of the father in the child's socialisation and the control the father has on the child's future. Shelley's last two novels, Lodore and Falkner , re-evaluate the father-daughter relationship. They were written at a time when Shelley was raising her only surviving child alone and supporting her ageing father. In both novels, the daughter eludes
7068-520: A regional accent or dialect. However, about 2% of Britons speak with an accent called Received Pronunciation (also called "the King's English", "Oxford English" and " BBC English" ), that is essentially region-less. It derives from a mixture of the Midlands and Southern dialects spoken in London in the early modern period. It is frequently used as a model for teaching English to foreign learners. In
7254-532: A result she and Godwin lost many friends. Godwin received further criticism because he had advocated the abolition of marriage in Political Justice . After their marriage at St. Pancras on 29 March 1797, they moved into two adjoining houses in Somers Town so that they could both still retain their independence; they often communicated by notes delivered by servants. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin
7440-471: A series of friends who were writing memoirs of Byron and Percy Shelley—the beginnings of her attempts to immortalise her husband. She also met the American actor John Howard Payne and the American writer Washington Irving , who intrigued her. Payne fell in love with her and in 1826 asked her to marry him. She refused, saying that after being married to one genius, she could only marry another. Payne accepted
7626-522: A storm near Viareggio . A year later, Shelley returned to England and from then on devoted herself to raising her son and her career as a professional author. The last decade of her life was dogged by illness, most likely caused by the brain tumour which killed her at the age of 53. Until the 1970s, Shelley was known mainly for her efforts to publish her husband's works and for her novel Frankenstein , which remains widely read and has inspired many theatrical and film adaptations. Recent scholarship has yielded
Mary Shelley - Misplaced Pages Continue
7812-573: A time of intense intellectual and creative activity for both Shelleys. While Percy composed a series of major poems, Mary wrote the novel Matilda , the historical novel Valperga , and the plays Proserpine and Midas . Mary wrote Valperga to help alleviate her father's financial difficulties, as Percy refused to assist him further. She was often physically ill, however, and prone to depressions. She also had to cope with Percy's interest in other women, such as Sophia Stacey , Emilia Viviani, and Jane Williams . Since Mary Shelley shared his belief in
7998-475: A time, Mary Shelley found comfort only in her writing. The birth of her fourth child, Percy Florence , on 12 November 1819, finally lifted her spirits, though she nursed the memory of her lost children till the end of her life. Italy provided the Shelleys, Byron, and other exiles with political freedom unattainable at home. Despite its associations with personal loss, Italy became for Mary Shelley "a country which memory painted as paradise". Their Italian years were
8184-401: A troubled relationship. In 1814, Mary began a romance with one of her father's political followers, Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was already married. Together with her stepsister, Claire Clairmont , she and Percy left for France and travelled through Europe. Upon their return to England, Mary was pregnant with Percy's child. Over the next two years, she and Percy faced ostracism, constant debt and
8370-482: A two-month premature baby girl, who was not expected to survive. On 6 March, she wrote to Hogg: My dearest Hogg my baby is dead—will you come to see me as soon as you can. I wish to see you—It was perfectly well when I went to bed—I awoke in the night to give it suck it appeared to be sleeping so quietly that I would not awake it. It was dead then, but we did not find that out till morning—from its appearance it evidently died of convulsions—Will you come—you are so calm
8556-597: A walk in the French countryside, he suggested that they both take the plunge into a stream naked; this offended her principles. She was partly consoled by the visits of Hogg, whom she disliked at first but soon considered a close friend. Percy Shelley seems to have wanted Mary Godwin and Hogg to become lovers; Mary did not dismiss the idea, since in principle she believed in free love . In practice, however, she loved only Percy Shelley and seems to have ventured no further than flirting with Hogg. On 22 February 1815, she gave birth to
8742-407: A woman disallowed for by her husband for alleged adultery. Shelley wrote in her diary about her assistance to the latter: "I do not make a boast-I do not say aloud-behold my generosity and greatness of mind-for in truth it is simple justice I perform-and so I am still reviled for being worldly". Mary Shelley continued to treat potential romantic partners with caution. In 1828, she met and flirted with
8928-471: A year younger than her was Claire Clairmont , Mary Jane's only daughter, to whom she showed favouritism. The youngest, and the only child of the second marriage, was William Godwin the Younger (1803–1832). Godwin sent him first to Charterhouse School and then to various other establishments of a practical bent. Nonetheless, he eventually earned his living by the pen. He died at 29, leaving the manuscript of
9114-725: Is also due to London-centric influences. Examples of R-dropping are car and sugar , where the R is not pronounced. British dialects differ on the extent of diphthongisation of long vowels, with southern varieties extensively turning them into diphthongs, and with northern dialects normally preserving many of them. As a comparison, North American varieties could be said to be in-between. Long vowels /iː/ and /uː/ are usually preserved, and in several areas also /oː/ and /eː/, as in go and say (unlike other varieties of English, that change them to [oʊ] and [eɪ] respectively). Some areas go as far as not diphthongising medieval /iː/ and /uː/, that give rise to modern /aɪ/ and /aʊ/; that is, for example, in
9300-503: Is based on British English, but has more influence from American English , often grouped together due to their close proximity. British English, for example, is the closest English to Indian English, but Indian English has extra vocabulary and some English words are assigned different meanings. William Godwin William Godwin (3 March 1756 – 7 April 1836) was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He
9486-518: Is breathed from these dumb things, animated and glorified as they were by man". Rome inspired her to begin writing the unfinished novel Valerius, the Reanimated Roman , where the eponymous hero resists the decay of Rome and the machinations of "superstitious" Catholicism. The writing of her novel was broken off when her son William died of malaria. Shelley bitterly commented that she had come to Italy to improve her husband's health, and instead
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#17327655592059672-497: Is clean, airy, sufficiently roomy, and in a healthy situation.... And the necessary labours of agriculture are shared amicably among all. The number of persons, and the produce of the island, we suppose to be the same as at present. The spirit of benevolence, guided by impartial justice, will divide this produce among all the members of the society according to their wants....With these extraordinary encouragements to population, and every cause of depopulation, as we have supposed, removed,
9858-412: Is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism and the first modern proponent of anarchism . Godwin is most famous for two books that he published within the space of a year: An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice , an attack on political institutions , and Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams , an early mystery novel which attacks aristocratic privilege. Based on
10044-560: Is felt, at least by the poorer segment of the society. Consequently, poverty was felt to be an inevitable phenomenon of society. Let us imagine for a moment Mr. Godwin's beautiful system of equality realized in its utmost purity, and see how soon this difficulty might be expected to press under so perfect a form of society.... Let us suppose all the causes of misery and vice in this island removed. War and contention cease. Unwholesome trades and manufactories do not exist. Crowds no longer collect together in great and pestilent cities.... Every house
10230-415: Is great, and her perseverance in everything she undertakes almost invincible." In June 1812, Mary's father sent her to stay with the dissenting family of the radical William Baxter, near Dundee , Scotland. To Baxter, he wrote, "I am anxious that she should be brought up ... like a philosopher, even like a cynic." Scholars have speculated that she was sent away for her health, to remove her from
10416-795: Is included in style guides issued by various publishers including The Times newspaper, the Oxford University Press and the Cambridge University Press . The Oxford University Press guidelines were originally drafted as a single broadsheet page by Horace Henry Hart, and were at the time (1893) the first guide of their type in English; they were gradually expanded and eventually published, first as Hart's Rules , and in 2002 as part of The Oxford Manual of Style . Comparable in authority and stature to The Chicago Manual of Style for published American English ,
10602-407: Is now vibrating." Godwin was buried next to Mary Wollstonecraft in the graveyard of St Pancras, the church where they had married in 1797. His second wife outlived him, and eventually was buried there too. The three share a gravestone. In the 1850s, Mary Shelley's only surviving child, Percy Florence Shelley , had the remains of Godwin and Wollstonecraft moved from what had become a run-down area of
10788-547: The Chambers Dictionary , and the Collins Dictionary record actual usage rather than attempting to prescribe it. In addition, vocabulary and usage change with time; words are freely borrowed from other languages and other varieties of English, and neologisms are frequent. For historical reasons dating back to the rise of London in the ninth century, the form of language spoken in London and
10974-616: The Chancery Court ruled Percy Shelley morally unfit to assume custody of his children and later placed them with a clergyman's family. Also in March, the Shelleys moved with Claire and Alba to Albion House at Marlow, Buckinghamshire , a large, damp building on the river Thames . There Mary Shelley gave birth to her third child, Clara, on 2 September. At Marlow, they entertained their new friends Marianne and Leigh Hunt , worked hard at their writing, and often discussed politics. Early in
11160-758: The Dissenting Academy in Hoxton , where he studied under Andrew Kippis , the biographer, and Abraham Rees , who was responsible for the Cyclopaedia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences . A hotspot for classical liberalism , at the Academy, Godwin familiarized himself with John Locke 's approach to psychology , Isaac Newton 's scientific method and Francis Hutcheson 's ethical system , which all informed Godwin's philosophies of determinism and immaterialism . Although Godwin had joined
11346-658: The East Midlands became standard English within the Court, and ultimately became the basis for generally accepted use in the law, government, literature and education in Britain. The standardisation of British English is thought to be from both dialect levelling and a thought of social superiority. Speaking in the Standard dialect created class distinctions; those who did not speak the standard English would be considered of
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#173276555920511532-522: The English language in England , or, more broadly, to the collective dialects of English throughout the British Isles taken as a single umbrella variety, for instance additionally incorporating Scottish English , Welsh English , and Northern Irish English . Tom McArthur in the Oxford Guide to World English acknowledges that British English shares "all the ambiguities and tensions [with]
11718-471: The Enlightenment political theories articulated by her father, William Godwin. Mary Shelley was born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin in Somers Town, London , in 1797. She was the second child of the feminist philosopher, educator, and writer Mary Wollstonecraft and the first child of the philosopher, novelist, and journalist William Godwin . Wollstonecraft died of puerperal fever shortly after Mary
11904-464: The Herald secured him further work as a critic for John Murray 's English Review and a commission to translate Simon Fraser 's memoirs. In 1784, he published the romantic novels Damon and Delia and Imogen , the latter of which was framed as a translation of a found manuscript from ancient Wales . That same year, he also published Sketches of History , which compiled six of his sermons about
12090-570: The Revolution Controversy , as he had started writing a work of political philosophy that developed on his radical principles . With George Robinson's financial support, Godwin quit his work at the New Annual Register and committed himself wholly to his magnum opus , which he hoped would condense the "best and most liberal in the science of politics into a coherent system". After sixteen months' work, while
12276-493: The Royal Spanish Academy with Spanish. Standard British English differs notably in certain vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation features from standard American English and certain other standard English varieties around the world. British and American spelling also differ in minor ways. The accent, or pronunciation system, of standard British English, based in southeastern England, has been known for over
12462-490: The Scots language or Scottish Gaelic ). Each group includes a range of dialects, some markedly different from others. The various British dialects also differ in the words that they have borrowed from other languages. Around the middle of the 15th century, there were points where within the 5 major dialects there were almost 500 ways to spell the word though . Following its last major survey of English Dialects (1949–1950),
12648-573: The University of Leeds has started work on a new project. In May 2007 the Arts and Humanities Research Council awarded a grant to Leeds to study British regional dialects. The team are sifting through a large collection of examples of regional slang words and phrases turned up by the "Voices project" run by the BBC , in which they invited the public to send in examples of English still spoken throughout
12834-484: The Villa Diodati , close to Lake Geneva at the village of Cologny ; Percy Shelley rented a smaller building called Maison Chapuis on the waterfront nearby. They spent their time writing, boating on the lake, and talking late into the night. "It proved a wet, ungenial summer", Mary Shelley remembered in 1831, "and incessant rain often confined us for days to the house". Sitting around a log fire at Byron's villa,
13020-610: The West Country and other near-by counties of the UK, the consonant R is not pronounced if not followed by a vowel, lengthening the preceding vowel instead. This phenomenon is known as non-rhoticity . In these same areas, a tendency exists to insert an R between a word ending in a vowel and a next word beginning with a vowel. This is called the intrusive R . It could be understood as a merger, in that words that once ended in an R and words that did not are no longer treated differently. This
13206-629: The 21st century. RP, while long established as the standard English accent around the globe due to the spread of the British Empire , is distinct from the standard English pronunciation in some parts of the world; most prominently, RP notably contrasts with standard North American accents. In the 21st century, dictionaries like the Oxford English Dictionary , the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English ,
13392-641: The Academy as a committed Tory , the outbreak of the American Revolution led him to support the Whig opposition and, after reading the works of Jonathan Swift , he became a staunch republican . He soon familiarised himself with the French philosophes , learning of Jean-Jacques Rousseau 's belief in the inherent goodness of human nature and opposition to private property , as well as Claude Adrien Helvétius 's utilitarianism and Paul-Henri Thiry 's materialism . In 1778, Godwin graduated from
13578-424: The American adventurer Gilbert Imlay , which resulted in the birth of Fanny Imlay . Godwin, stubborn in his practice, practically lived in secret for 30 years because of his reputation. However, in its influence on writers such as Shelley, who read the work on multiple occasions between 1810 and 1820, and Kropotkin , Political Justice takes its place with Milton 's Areopagitica and Rousseau 's Émile as
13764-452: The Bay of Lerici . Once they were settled in, Percy broke the "evil news" to Claire that her daughter Allegra had died of typhus in a convent at Bagnacavallo . Mary Shelley was distracted and unhappy in the cramped and remote Villa Magni, which she came to regard as a dungeon. On 16 June, she miscarried , losing so much blood that she nearly died. Rather than wait for a doctor, Percy sat her in
13950-842: The British government, and was inspired by his grandfather and father to take up the dissenting tradition and become a minister himself. At eleven years old, he became the sole pupil of Samuel Newton , a hard-line Calvinist and a disciple of Robert Sandeman . Although Newton's strict method of discipline left Godwin with a lasting anti-authoritarianism , Godwin internalized the Sandemanian creed , which emphasised rationalism , egalitarianism and consensus decision-making . Despite Godwin's later renunciation of Christianity, he maintained his Sandemanian roots, which he held responsible for his commitment to rationalism, as well as his stoic personality . Godwin later characterised Newton as, "...
14136-836: The English Language (1755) was a large step in the English-language spelling reform , where the purification of language focused on standardising both speech and spelling. By the early 20th century, British authors had produced numerous books intended as guides to English grammar and usage, a few of which achieved sufficient acclaim to have remained in print for long periods and to have been reissued in new editions after some decades. These include, most notably of all, Fowler's Modern English Usage and The Complete Plain Words by Sir Ernest Gowers . Detailed guidance on many aspects of writing British English for publication
14322-433: The French writer Prosper Mérimée , but her one surviving letter to him appears to be a deflection of his declaration of love. She was delighted when her old friend from Italy, Edward Trelawny , returned to England, and they joked about marriage in their letters. Their friendship had altered, however, following her refusal to cooperate with his proposed biography of Percy Shelley; and he later reacted angrily to her omission of
14508-613: The Germanic schwein ) is the animal in the field bred by the occupied Anglo-Saxons and pork (like the French porc ) is the animal at the table eaten by the occupying Normans. Another example is the Anglo-Saxon cu meaning cow, and the French bœuf meaning beef. Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical simplification and lexical enrichment of the Anglo-Frisian core of English;
14694-518: The Hill herself so that Percy could attend as a day scholar. Though Percy went on to Trinity College, Cambridge , and dabbled in politics and the law, he showed no sign of his parents' gifts. In 1840 and 1842, mother and son travelled together on the continent, journeys that Mary Shelley recorded in Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842 and 1843 (1844). In 1844, Sir Timothy Shelley finally died at
14880-604: The Italian climate had just killed her two children, leading her to write: "May you my dear Marianne never know what it is to lose two only and lovely children in one year—to watch their dying moments—and then at last to be left childless and forever miserable". To deal with her grief, Shelley wrote the novella The Fields of Fancy , which became Matilda , dealing with a young woman whose beauty inspired incestuous love in her father, who ultimately commits suicide to stop himself from acting on his passion for his daughter, while she spends
15066-573: The Jacobins, as they were acquitted. However, Godwin's own reputation was eventually besmirched after 1798 by the conservative press, in part because he chose to write a candid biography of his late wife, Mary Wollstonecraft , entitled Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman , including accounts of her two suicide attempts and her affair (before her relationship with Godwin) with
15252-598: The Juvenile Library, significant in the history of children's literature . Through this, Godwin wrote children's primers on Biblical and classical history, and using the pseudonym Edward Baldwin , he wrote a variety of books for children, including a version of Jack and the Beanstalk , and a biography of the Irish artist William Mulready , who illustrated works for them. They kept alive family ties, publishing
15438-922: The Oxford Manual is a fairly exhaustive standard for published British English that writers can turn to in the absence of specific guidance from their publishing house. British English is the basis of, and very similar to, Commonwealth English . Commonwealth English is English as spoken and written in the Commonwealth countries , though often with some local variation. This includes English spoken in Australia , Malta , New Zealand , Nigeria , and South Africa . It also includes South Asian English used in South Asia, in English varieties in Southeast Asia , and in parts of Africa. Canadian English
15624-503: The Rights of Woman (1792), but Mary Godwin nonetheless received an unusual and advanced education for a girl of the time. She had a governess and a daily tutor and read many of her father's children's books on Roman and Greek history in manuscript. For six months in 1811, she also attended a boarding school in Ramsgate . Her father described her at age 15 as "singularly bold, somewhat imperious, and active of mind. Her desire of knowledge
15810-712: The South East, there are significantly different accents; the Cockney accent spoken by some East Londoners is strikingly different from Received Pronunciation (RP). Cockney rhyming slang can be (and was initially intended to be) difficult for outsiders to understand, although the extent of its use is often somewhat exaggerated. Londoners speak with a mixture of accents, depending on ethnicity, neighbourhood, class, age, upbringing, and sundry other factors. Estuary English has been gaining prominence in recent decades: it has some features of RP and some of Cockney. Immigrants to
15996-550: The UK in recent decades have brought many more languages to the country and particularly to London. Surveys started in 1979 by the Inner London Education Authority discovered over 125 languages being spoken domestically by the families of the inner city's schoolchildren. Notably Multicultural London English , a sociolect that emerged in the late 20th century spoken mainly by young, working-class people in multicultural parts of London . Since
16182-640: The United Kingdom , as well as within the countries themselves. The major divisions are normally classified as English English (or English as spoken in England (which is itself broadly grouped into Southern English , West Country , East and West Midlands English and Northern English ), Northern Irish English (in Northern Ireland), Welsh English (not to be confused with the Welsh language ), and Scottish English (not to be confused with
16368-467: The United States, due to the expanse of resources available there), every married couple would have to have at least eight children, given the rate of childhood deaths. Godwin himself was one of thirteen children, but he did not observe the majority of couples in his day having eight children. He therefore concluded: In reality, if I had not taken up the pen with the express purpose of confuting all
16554-465: The West Scottish accent. Phonological features characteristic of British English revolve around the pronunciation of the letter R, as well as the dental plosive T and some diphthongs specific to this dialect. Once regarded as a Cockney feature, in a number of forms of spoken British English, /t/ has become commonly realised as a glottal stop [ʔ] when it is in the intervocalic position, in
16740-593: The academy and was quickly appointed as a minister in Ware , where he met Joseph Fawcett , one of his main direct influences. By 1780, he had been reassigned to Stowmarket , where he first read Paul-Henri Thiry 's System of Nature , adopting his philosophies of determinism and materialism . But after a conflict with other dissenting ministers of Suffolk over the administration of the eucharist , he stepped down and left for London in April 1782, resigning his career as
16926-410: The adjective little is predominant elsewhere. Nevertheless, there is a meaningful degree of uniformity in written English within the United Kingdom, and this could be described by the term British English . The forms of spoken English, however, vary considerably more than in most other areas of the world where English is spoken and so a uniform concept of British English is more difficult to apply to
17112-478: 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,
17298-509: The age of ninety, "falling from the stalk like an overblown flower", as Mary put it. For the first time, she and her son were financially independent, though the estate proved less valuable than they had hoped. In the mid-1840s, Mary Shelley found herself the target of three separate blackmailers. In 1845, an Italian political exile called Gatteschi, whom she had met in Paris, threatened to publish letters she had sent him. A friend of her son bribed
17484-563: The atheistic section of Queen Mab from Percy Shelley's poems. Oblique references in her journals, from the early 1830s until the early 1840s, suggest that Mary Shelley had feelings for the radical politician Aubrey Beauclerk , who may have disappointed her by twice marrying others. Mary Shelley's first concern during these years was the welfare of Percy Florence. She honoured her late husband's wish that his son attend public school and, with Sir Timothy's grudging help, had him educated at Harrow . To avoid boarding fees, she moved to Harrow on
17670-488: The award of the grant in 2007, Leeds University stated: that they were "very pleased"—and indeed, "well chuffed"—at receiving their generous grant. He could, of course, have been "bostin" if he had come from the Black Country , or if he was a Scouser he would have been well "made up" over so many spondoolicks, because as a Geordie might say, £460,000 is a "canny load of chink". Most people in Britain speak with
17856-429: The biographical articles for Dionysius Lardner 's Cabinet Cyclopaedia (1829–1846), support the growing view that Shelley remained a political radical throughout her life. Shelley's works often argue that cooperation and sympathy, particularly as practised by women in the family, were the ways to reform civil society. This view was a direct challenge to the individualistic Romantic ethos promoted by Percy Shelley and
18042-460: The business did not turn a profit, and Godwin was forced to borrow substantial sums to keep it going. He continued to borrow to pay off earlier loans, compounding his difficulties. By 1809, Godwin's business was close to failure, and he was "near to despair". Godwin was saved from debtor's prison by philosophical devotees such as Francis Place , who lent him further money. Though Mary Godwin received little formal education, her father tutored her in
18228-665: The capital to the more salubrious surroundings of Bournemouth, to his family tomb at St Peter's Church . The surviving manuscripts for many of Godwin's best-known works are held in the Forster Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum . The V&A's manuscripts for Political Justice and Caleb Williams were both digitised in 2017 and are now included in the Shelley-Godwin Archive. His birthplace, Wisbech, has two memorials to him. A cul-de-sac
18414-556: The characters of Aaron , Hazael and Jesus . Drawing from John Milton 's Paradise Lost , which depicted Satan as a rebel against his creator , Godwin denounced the Christian God as a theocrat and a tyrant that had no right to rule. As his early works were financially unsuccessful, in 1784, William Godwin hoped John Collins, a wealthy owner of a sugar plantation in St. Vincent would fund his writing. He did not succeed but
18600-407: The churchyard of St Pancras Old Church , and they fell in love—she was 16, and he was 21. On 26 June 1814, Shelley and Godwin declared their love for one another as Shelley announced he could not hide his "ardent passion", leading her in a "sublime and rapturous moment" to say she felt the same way; on either that day or the next, Godwin lost her virginity to Shelley, which tradition claims happened in
18786-411: The churchyard. Godwin described herself as attracted to Shelley's "wild, intellectual, unearthly looks". To Mary's dismay, her father disapproved, and tried to thwart the relationship and salvage the "spotless fame" of his daughter. At about the same time, Mary's father learned of Shelley's inability to pay off the father's debts. Mary, who later wrote of "my excessive and romantic attachment to my father",
18972-546: The close connection between Godwin and members of the Collins family continued for fifty years. John Collin's eldest daughter Harriet de Boinville and William met seventy-two times between 1809 and 1827, and she championed Godwin's An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness (1793) at her salons during that time period. In further attempts to earn money, Godwin started writing for well-paying Whig journals on Grub Street , starting work as
19158-417: The company amused themselves with German ghost stories , which prompted Byron to propose that they "each write a ghost story". Unable to think of a story, young Mary Godwin became anxious: " Have you thought of a story? I was asked each morning, and each morning I was forced to reply with a mortifying negative." During one mid-June evening, the discussions turned to the nature of the principle of life. "Perhaps
19344-567: The country. The BBC Voices project also collected hundreds of news articles about how the British speak English from swearing through to items on language schools. This information will also be collated and analysed by Johnson's team both for content and for where it was reported. "Perhaps the most remarkable finding in the Voices study is that the English language is as diverse as ever, despite our increased mobility and constant exposure to other accents and dialects through TV and radio". When discussing
19530-568: The death of their prematurely born daughter. They married in late 1816, after the suicide of Percy Shelley's wife, Harriet. In 1816, the couple and Mary's stepsister famously spent a summer with Lord Byron and John William Polidori near Geneva , Switzerland, where Shelley conceived the idea for her novel Frankenstein . The Shelleys left Britain in 1818 for Italy, where their second and third children died before Shelley gave birth to her last and only surviving child, Percy Florence Shelley . In 1822, her husband drowned when his sailboat sank during
19716-663: The deaths of both her children—Clara, in September 1818 in Venice, and William, in June 1819 in Rome. These losses left her in a deep depression that isolated her from Percy Shelley, who wrote in his notebook: My dearest Mary, wherefore hast thou gone, And left me in this dreary world alone? Thy form is here indeed—a lovely one— But thou art fled, gone down a dreary road That leads to Sorrow's most obscure abode. For thine own sake I cannot follow thee Do thou return for mine. For
19902-451: The disadvantaged. Percy Shelley, therefore, had difficulty gaining access to money until he inherited his estate because his family did not want him wasting it on projects of "political justice". After several months of promises, Shelley announced that he either could not or would not pay off all of Godwin's debts. Godwin was angry and felt betrayed. Mary and Percy began meeting each other secretly at her mother Mary Wollstonecraft 's grave in
20088-505: The errors of Mr Malthus's book, and of endeavouring to introduce other principles, more cheering, more favourable to the best interests of mankind, and better prepared to resist the inroads of vice and misery, I might close my argument here, and lay down the pen with this brief remark, that, when this author shall have produced from any country, the United States of North America not excepted, a register of marriages and births, from which it shall appear that there are on an average eight births to
20274-523: The events as the spiritual successor to Britain's own Glorious Revolution of 1688. As a member of the Revolution Society , Godwin met the political activist Richard Price , whose Discourse on the Love of Our Country espoused a radical form of patriotism that controversially upheld freedom of religion , representative democracy and the right of revolution . Price's Discourse ignited
20460-437: The fading hope that their husbands were still alive. Ten days after the storm, three bodies washed up on the coast near Viareggio , midway between Livorno and Lerici. Trelawny, Byron, and Hunt cremated Percy Shelley's corpse on the beach at Viareggio. "[ Frankenstein ] is the most wonderful work to have been written at twenty years of age that I ever heard of. You are now five and twenty. And, most fortunately, you have pursued
20646-706: The father's control by giving him the traditional maternal figure he asks for. This relationship gives the daughter control of the father. Godwin was awarded a sinecure position as Office Keeper and Yeoman Usher of the Receipt of the Exchequer, which came with grace and favour accommodation in New Palace Yard , part of the complex of the Palace of Westminster , i.e. the Houses of Parliament. One of his duties
20832-474: The first book by Margaret King (then Lady Mount Cashell), who had been a favoured pupil of Mary Wollstonecraft. They published works never since out of print, such as Charles and Mary Lamb 's Tales from Shakespeare . The Juvenile Library also translated European authors. The first English edition of Swiss Family Robinson was translated (from the French, not the German) and edited by them. The business
21018-406: The five children he had raised had pre-deceased him, and two more lived abroad. Mary responded to his expectations and she cared for him until he died in 1836. In 1836, Harriet de Boinville described Godwin's death, in a letter to his daughter Mary, as "the extinction of a mastermind. ... Everything is interesting which relates to such a man, one of the gifted few under whose moral influences society
21204-534: The form in which it was presented to the world." She wrote that the preface to the first edition was Percy's work "as far as I can recollect". There are differences in the 1818, 1823 and 1831 editions, which have been attributed to Percy's editing. James Rieger concluded Percy's "assistance at every point in the book's manufacture was so extensive that one hardly knows whether to regard him as editor or minor collaborator", while Anne K. Mellor later argued Percy only "made many technical corrections and several times clarified
21390-432: The grounds belonging to our house, or on the bleak sides of the woodless mountains near, that my true compositions, the airy flights of my imagination, were born and fostered." Mary Godwin may have first met the radical poet-philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley in the interval between her two stays in Scotland. By the time she returned home for a second time on 30 March 1814, Percy Shelley had become estranged from his wife and
21576-616: The growth of population. Godwin pictured a social utopia where society would reach a level of sustainability and engage in "voluntary communism". In July 1820, Godwin published Of Population: An Enquiry Concerning the Power of Increase in the Numbers of Mankind as a rebuttal to Malthus' essays. Godwin's main argument was against Malthus' notion that population tends to grow exponentially. Godwin believed that for population to double every twenty-five years (as Malthus had asserted had occurred in
21762-632: The help of Payne, whom she kept in the dark about the details, Mary Shelley obtained false passports for the couple. In 1828, she fell ill with smallpox while visiting them in Paris; weeks later she recovered, unscarred but without her youthful beauty. During the period 1827–40, Mary Shelley was busy as an editor and writer. She wrote the novels The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck (1830), Lodore (1835), and Falkner (1837). She contributed five volumes of Lives of Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and French authors to Dionysius Lardner 's Cabinet Cyclopaedia . She also wrote stories for ladies' magazines. She
21948-458: The idea of two different morphemes, one that causes the double negation, and one that is used for the point or the verb. Standard English in the United Kingdom, as in other English-speaking nations, is widely enforced in schools and by social norms for formal contexts but not by any singular authority; for instance, there is no institution equivalent to the Académie française with French or
22134-428: The incidents which make the history of our lives, and if these incidents could be divested of every improper tendency, vice would be extirpated from the world." All control of man by man was more or less intolerable, and the day would come when each man, doing what seems right in his own eyes, would also be doing what is in fact best for the community, because all will be guided by principles of pure reason. Such optimism
22320-421: The influence of Political Justice with the publication of a novel that proved equally popular, Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams . This tells the story of a servant who finds out a dark secret about Falkland, his aristocratic master, and is forced to flee because of his knowledge. Caleb Williams is essentially the first thriller: Godwin wryly remarked that some readers were consuming in
22506-412: The initial idea by Lord Byron that they each write a ghost story. While her husband Percy encouraged her writing, the extent of Percy's contribution to the novel is unknown and has been argued over by readers and critics. Mary Shelley wrote, "I certainly did not owe the suggestion of one incident, nor scarcely of one train of feeling, to my husband, and yet but for his incitement, it would never have taken
22692-403: The interim, Wollstonecraft went to live in France to witness the Revolution for herself, and had a child, Fanny Imlay , with an American adventurer named Gilbert Imlay. In pursuit of Gilbert Imlay 's business affairs, Wollstonecraft travelled to Scandinavia, and soon afterwards published a book based on the voyage . Godwin read it, and later wrote that "If ever there was a book calculated to make
22878-523: The last southern Midlands accent to use the broad "a" in words like bath or grass (i.e. barth or grarss ). Conversely crass or plastic use a slender "a". A few miles northwest in Leicestershire the slender "a" becomes more widespread generally. In the town of Corby , five miles (8 km) north, one can find Corbyite which, unlike the Kettering accent, is largely influenced by
23064-518: The later Norman occupation led to the grafting onto that Germanic core of a more elaborate layer of words from the Romance branch of the European languages. This Norman influence entered English largely through the courts and government. Thus, English developed into a "borrowing" language of great flexibility and with a huge vocabulary . Dialects and accents vary amongst the four countries of
23250-548: The love of his life. Simultaneously, he became responsible for the care of these two young girls, the new-born Mary and toddler Fanny. When Mary was three years old, Godwin left his daughters in the care of James Marshall while he travelled to Ireland. Godwin's tone in his letters demonstrates how much he cared about them. His letters show the stress he placed on giving his two daughters a sense of security. "And now what shall I say for my poor little girls? I hope they have not forgot me. I think of them every day, and should be glad, if
23436-457: The mass internal migration to Northamptonshire in the 1940s and given its position between several major accent regions, it has become a source of various accent developments. In Northampton the older accent has been influenced by overspill Londoners. There is an accent known locally as the Kettering accent, which is a transitional accent between the East Midlands and East Anglian . It is
23622-463: The modern period, but due to their remoteness from the Germanic languages , influence on English was notably limited . However, the degree of influence remains debated, and it has recently been argued that its grammatical influence accounts for the substantial innovations noted between English and the other West Germanic languages. Initially, Old English was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting
23808-524: The moment "when I first stepped out from childhood into life". The story of the writing of Frankenstein has been fictionalised several times and has formed the basis for a number of films. In September 2011, the astronomer Donald Olson , after a visit to the Lake Geneva villa the previous year, and inspecting data about the motion of the moon and stars, concluded that her waking dream took place "between 2am and 3am" on 16 June 1816, several days after
23994-610: The morning of 10 October, Fanny Imlay was found dead in a room at a Swansea inn, along with a suicide note and a laudanum bottle. On 10 December, Percy Shelley's wife, Harriet, was discovered drowned in the Serpentine , a lake in Hyde Park, London . Both suicides were hushed up. Harriet's family obstructed Percy Shelley's efforts—fully supported by Mary Godwin—to assume custody of his two children by Harriet. His lawyers advised him to improve his case by marrying; so he and Mary, who
24180-489: The most radical passages as too shocking and atheistical, but Mary prevailed, thanks to Harriet de Boinville , who agreed to Mary's request to borrow her own original copy gifted by Percy Shelley. Mary was paid £500 to edit the Poetical Works (1838), which Sir Timothy insisted should not include a biography. Mary found a way to tell the story of Percy's life, nonetheless: she included extensive biographical notes about
24366-569: The narrative and thematic continuity of the text." Charles E. Robinson, editor of a facsimile edition of the Frankenstein manuscripts, concluded that Percy's contributions to the book "were no more than what most publishers' editors have provided new (or old) authors or, in fact, what colleagues have provided to each other after reading each other's works in progress." Writing on the 200th anniversary of Frankenstein , literary scholar and poet Fiona Sampson asked, "Why hasn't Mary Shelley gotten
24552-454: The non-exclusivity of marriage, she formed emotional ties of her own among the men and women of their circle. She became particularly fond of the Greek revolutionary Prince Alexandros Mavrokordatos and of Jane and Edward Williams . In December 1818, the Shelleys travelled south with Claire Clairmont and their servants to Naples , where they stayed for three months, receiving only one visitor,
24738-430: The numbers would necessarily increase faster than in any society that has ever yet been known.... Malthus went on to argue that under such ideal conditions, the population could conceivably double every 25 years. However, the food supply could not continue doubling at this rate for even 50 years. The food supply would become inadequate for the growing population, and then: ...the mighty law of self-preservation expels all
24924-535: The opening of a seminary in Epsom , Godwin gave a politically-charged speech in which he denounced state power as "artificial" and exalted the libertarian potential of education , which he believed could bring an end to authoritarian governments . Godwin then worked for a spell as a satirical literary critic, publishing The Herald of Literature , in which he reviewed non-existent works by real authors, imitating their writing styles in lengthy quotations. His work on
25110-480: The original sin of the worst men. No opposition had been produced by them between public and private good. No monopoly had been created of those advantages which reason directs to be left in common. No man had been goaded to the breach of order by unjust laws. Benevolence had established her reign in all hearts: and yet in so short a period as within fifty years, violence, oppression, falsehood, misery, every hateful vice, and every form of distress, which degrade and sadden
25296-623: The outbreak of a revolutionary wave in Europe. After the death of the Political Herald's editor, Godwin turned down Richard Brinsley Sheridan 's offer of succeeding to the editorship, out of concern that his editorial independence would be compromised by a direct financial connection to the Whig Party . But it was through Sheridan that Godwin became acquainted with a life-long friend Thomas Holcroft , whose arguments convinced Godwin to finally reject Christianity and embrace atheism . At
25482-631: The party's first tasks on arriving in Italy was to hand Alba over to Byron, who was living in Venice . He had agreed to raise her so long as Claire had nothing more to do with her. The Shelleys then embarked on a roving existence, never settling in any one place for long. Along the way, they accumulated a circle of friends and acquaintances who often moved with them. The couple devoted their time to writing, reading, learning, sightseeing, and socialising. The Italian adventure was, however, blighted for Mary Shelley by
25668-405: The poems. Shelley continued to practise her mother's feminist principles by extending aid to women of whom society disapproved. For instance, Shelley extended financial aid to Mary Diana Dods, a single mother and illegitimate herself, who appears to have been a lesbian, and gave her the new identity of Walter Sholto Douglas, husband of her lover Isabel Robinson. Shelley also assisted Georgiana Paul,
25854-515: The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley . With his second wife, Mary Jane Clairmont , Godwin set up The Juvenile Library, allowing the family to write their own works for children (sometimes using noms de plume ) and translate and publish many other books, some of enduring significance. Godwin has had considerable influence on British literature and literary culture. Godwin was born in Wisbech , Isle of Ely , Cambridgeshire , to John and Anne Godwin, becoming
26040-591: The poet were published. In 1826, Percy Florence became the legal heir of the Shelley estate after the death of his half-brother Charles Shelley, his father's son by Harriet Shelley. Sir Timothy raised Mary's allowance from £100 a year to £250 but remained as difficult as ever. Mary Shelley enjoyed the stimulating society of William Godwin's circle, but poverty prevented her from socialising as she wished. She also felt ostracised by those who, like Sir Timothy, still disapproved of her relationship with Percy Bysshe Shelley. In
26226-402: The present state of society, seem to have been generated by the most imperious circumstances, by laws inherent in the nature of man, and absolutely independent of it human regulations. In Political Justice Godwin had acknowledged that an increase in the standard of living as he envisioned could cause population pressures, but he saw an obvious solution to avoiding distress: "project a change in
26412-518: The project. Throughout this period, she also championed Percy Shelley's poetry, promoting its publication and quoting it in her writing. By 1837, Percy's works were well-known and increasingly admired. In the summer of 1838 Edward Moxon , the publisher of Tennyson and the son-in-law of Charles Lamb , proposed publishing an edition of the collected works of Percy Shelley. Mary wanted to include in this collection an unexpurgated version of Percy Shelley's epic poem Queen Mab. Moxon wanted to leave out
26598-406: The rejection, and tried – without success – to talk his friend Irving into proposing himself. Mary Shelley was aware of Payne's plan, but how seriously she took it is unclear. In 1827, Mary Shelley was party to a scheme that enabled her friend Isabel Robinson and Isabel's lover, Mary Diana Dods , who wrote under the name David Lyndsay, to embark on a life together in France as husband and wife. With
26784-1107: The respect she deserves?" She noted that "In recent years Percy's corrections, visible in the Frankenstein notebooks held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, have been seized on as evidence that he must have at least co-authored the novel. In fact, when I examined the notebooks myself, I realized that Percy did rather less than any line editor working in publishing today." Sampson published her findings in In Search of Mary Shelley (2018), one of many biographies written about Shelley. On their return to England in September 1816, Mary and Percy moved—with Claire Clairmont, who took lodgings nearby—to Bath , where they hoped to keep Claire's pregnancy secret. At Cologny, Mary Godwin had received two letters from her half-sister, Fanny Imlay , who alluded to her "unhappy life"; on 9 October, Fanny wrote an "alarming letter" from Bristol that sent Percy Shelley racing off to search for her, without success. On
26970-421: The rest of her life full of despair about "the unnatural love I had inspired". The novella offered a feminist critique of a patriarchal society as Matilda is punished in the afterlife, though she did nothing to encourage her father's feelings. In the summer of 1822, a pregnant Mary moved with Percy, Claire, and Edward and Jane Williams to the isolated Villa Magni, at the sea's edge near the hamlet of San Terenzo in
27156-471: The return journey to Lerici with their eighteen-year-old boat boy, Charles Vivian. They never reached their destination. A letter arrived at Villa Magni from Hunt to Percy Shelley, dated 8 July, saying, "pray write to tell us how you got home, for they say you had bad weather after you sailed Monday & we are anxious". "The paper fell from me," Mary told a friend later. "I trembled all over." She and Jane Williams rushed desperately to Livorno and then to Pisa in
27342-557: The revolution in France had culminated with the execution of Louis XVI and the outbreak of war , Godwin published his Enquiry Concerning Political Justice in February 1793. Godwin first met Mary Wollstonecraft at the home of their mutual publisher. Joseph Johnson was hosting a dinner for another of his authors, Thomas Paine , and Godwin remarked years later that on that evening he heard too little of Paine and too much of Wollstonecraft; he did not see her again for some years. In
27528-691: The rights of every one 'to every substance capable of contributing to the benefit of a human being' must be regulated by justice alone: the substance must go ' to him who most wants it '. His conclusion was communism." In 1798, Thomas Robert Malthus wrote An Essay on the Principle of Population in response to Godwin's views on the "perfectibility of society". Malthus wrote that populations are inclined to increase in times of plenty, and that only distress, from causes such as food shortages, disease, or war, serves to stem population growth. Populations in his view are therefore always doomed to grow until distress
27714-558: The same time, Godwin took up a side job as a tutor for the young Thomas Abthorpe Cooper . After a fractious relationship between the two, Godwin eventually became the orphaned boy's adoptive father , which altered his style of pedagogy to one that emphasised "an open and honest relationship between tutor and pupil." With the outbreak of the French Revolution , Godwin was among the Radicals that enthusiastically welcomed
27900-400: The seamy side of the business, or to introduce her to radical politics. Mary Godwin revelled in the spacious surroundings of Baxter's house and in the companionship of his four daughters, and she returned north in the summer of 1813 for a further stay of 10 months. In the 1831 introduction to Frankenstein , she recalled: "I wrote then—but in a most common-place style. It was beneath the trees of
28086-476: The seventh of his parents' thirteen children. Godwin's family on both sides were middle-class and his parents adhered to a strict form of Calvinism . Godwin's mother came from a wealthy family but due to her uncle's frivolities the family wealth was squandered. Fortunately for the family, her father was a successful merchant involved in the Baltic Sea trade . Shortly following William's birth, his father John,
28272-429: The softer and more exalted emotions of the soul.... The corn is plucked before it is ripe, or secreted in unfair proportions; and the whole black train of vices that belong to falsehood are immediately generated. Provisions no longer flow in for the support of the mother with a large family. The children are sickly from insufficient food.... No human institutions here existed, to the perverseness of which Mr. Godwin ascribes
28458-401: The spoken language. Globally, countries that are former British colonies or members of the Commonwealth tend to follow British English, as is the case for English used by European Union institutions. In China, both British English and American English are taught. The UK government actively teaches and promotes English around the world and operates in over 200 countries . English is
28644-437: The structure of human action, if not of human nature, specifically the eclipsing of the desire for sex by the development of intellectual pleasures". In the 1798 version of his essay, Malthus specifically rejected this possible change in human nature. In the second and subsequent editions, however, he wrote that widespread moral restraint, i.e., postponement of marriage and pre-nuptial celibacy ( sexual abstinence ), could reduce
28830-512: The success of both, Godwin featured prominently in the radical circles of London in the 1790s. He wrote prolifically in the genres of novels, history and demography throughout his life. In the conservative reaction to British radicalism , Godwin was attacked, in part because of his marriage to the feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft in 1797 and his candid biography of her after her death from childbirth. Their daughter, later known as Mary Shelley , would go on to write Frankenstein and marry
29016-565: The summer of 1817, Mary Shelley finished Frankenstein , which was published anonymously in January 1818. Reviewers and readers assumed that Percy Shelley was the author, since the book was published with his preface and dedicated to his political hero William Godwin. At Marlow, Mary edited the joint journal of the group's 1814 Continental journey, adding material written in Switzerland in 1816, along with Percy's poem " Mont Blanc ". The result
29202-414: The summer of 1824, Mary Shelley moved to Kentish Town in north London to be near Jane Williams. She may have been, in the words of her biographer Muriel Spark , "a little in love" with Jane. Jane later disillusioned her by gossiping that Percy had preferred her to Mary, owing to Mary's inadequacy as a wife. At around this time, Mary Shelley was working on her novel, The Last Man (1826); and she assisted
29388-515: The summer", a new sailing boat. The boat had been designed by Daniel Roberts and an admirer of Byron, Edward Trelawny , who had joined the party in January 1822. On 1 July 1822, Percy Shelley, Edward Ellerker Williams , and Captain Daniel Roberts sailed south down the coast to Livorno . There Percy Shelley discussed with Byron and Leigh Hunt the launch of a radical magazine called The Liberal . On 8 July, he and Edward Williams set out on
29574-535: The tendency of a population to grow until distress was felt. Godwin also saw new technology as being partly responsible for the future change in human nature into more intellectually developed beings. He reasoned that increasing technological advances would lead to a decrease in the amount of time individuals spent on production and labour, and thereby, to more time spent on developing "their intellectual and moral faculties". Instead of population growing exponentially, Godwin believed that this moral improvement would outrun
29760-603: The theft of work tools worth £500 from a van at the Sprucefield park and ride car park in Lisburn. A football team can be treated likewise: Arsenal have lost just one of 20 home Premier League matches against Manchester City. This tendency can be observed in texts produced already in the 19th century. For example, Jane Austen , a British author, writes in Chapter 4 of Pride and Prejudice , published in 1813: All
29946-403: The traditional accent of Newcastle upon Tyne , 'out' will sound as 'oot', and in parts of Scotland and North-West England, 'my' will be pronounced as 'me'. Long vowels /iː/ and /uː/ are diphthongised to [ɪi] and [ʊu] respectively (or, more technically, [ʏʉ], with a raised tongue), so that ee and oo in feed and food are pronounced with a movement. The diphthong [oʊ] is also pronounced with
30132-506: The trio travelled to Paris, and then, by donkey, mule, carriage, and foot, through a France recently ravaged by war , to Switzerland. "It was acting in a novel, being an incarnate romance," Mary Shelley recalled in 1826. Godwin wrote about France in 1814: "The distress of the inhabitants, whose houses had been burned, their cattle killed and all their wealth destroyed, has given a sting to my detestation of war...". As they travelled, Mary and Percy read works by Mary Wollstonecraft and others, kept
30318-750: The varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England. One of these dialects, Late West Saxon , eventually came to dominate. The original Old English was then influenced by two waves of invasion: the first was by speakers of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who settled in parts of Britain in the eighth and ninth centuries; the second was the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke Old Norman and ultimately developed an English variety of this called Anglo-Norman . These two invasions caused English to become "mixed" to some degree (though it
30504-654: The wind was more favourable, to blow them a kiss a-piece from Dublin to the Polygon.. but I have seen none that I love so well or think half so good as my own." In December 1800 his play Antonio, or the Soldier's Return was put on at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane without success. In 1801, Godwin married his neighbour Mary Jane Clairmont . She brought two of her own children into the household, Charles and Claire . Journalist H.N. Brailsford wrote in 1913, "She
30690-402: The word 'British' and as a result can be used and interpreted in two ways, more broadly or more narrowly, within a range of blurring and ambiguity". Variations exist in formal (both written and spoken) English in the United Kingdom. For example, the adjective wee is almost exclusively used in parts of Scotland, north-east England, Northern Ireland, Ireland, and occasionally Yorkshire , whereas
30876-561: The working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world. She began writing what she assumed would be a short story. With Percy Shelley's encouragement, she expanded this tale into her first novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus , published in 1818. She later described that summer in Switzerland as
31062-568: The world are good and agreeable in your eyes. However, in Chapter 16, the grammatical number is used. The world is blinded by his fortune and consequence. Some dialects of British English use negative concords, also known as double negatives . Rather than changing a word or using a positive, words like nobody, not, nothing, and never would be used in the same sentence. While this does not occur in Standard English, it does occur in non-standard dialects. The double negation follows
31248-503: The writer Thomas Love Peacock . Percy Shelley sometimes left home for short periods to dodge creditors. The couple's distraught letters reveal their pain at these separations. Pregnant and often ill, Mary Godwin had to cope with Percy's joy at the birth of his son by Harriet Shelley in late 1814 and his constant outings with Claire Clairmont. Shelley and Clairmont were almost certainly lovers, which caused much jealousy on Godwin's part. Shelley greatly offended Godwin at one point when, during
31434-428: Was a vulgar and worldly woman, thoroughly feminine, and rather inclined to boast of her total ignorance of philosophy." While Fanny eventually learned to live with Clairmont, Mary's relationship with her stepmother was tense. Mary writes, "As to Mrs Godwin, something very analogous to disgust arises whenever I mention her", "A woman I shudder to think of". In 1805, the Godwins set up a shop and publishing house called
31620-401: Was born in Somers Town on 30 August 1797, the couple's only child. Godwin had hoped for a son and had been planning on naming the child "William". On 10 September 1797 Wollstonecraft died of complications following the birth. By all accounts, it had been a happy and stable, though brief, relationship. Now Godwin, who had been a bachelor until a few months before, was distraught at the loss of
31806-529: Was born. Godwin was left to bring up Mary, along with her older half-sister, Fanny Imlay , Wollstonecraft's child by the American speculator Gilbert Imlay . A year after Wollstonecraft's death, Godwin published his Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1798), which he intended as a sincere and compassionate tribute. However, because the Memoirs revealed Wollstonecraft's affairs and her illegitimate child, they were seen as shocking. Mary Godwin read these memoirs and her mother's books, and
31992-533: Was brought up to cherish her mother's memory. Mary's earliest years were happy, judging from the letters of William Godwin's housekeeper and nurse, Louisa Jones. But Godwin was often deeply in debt; feeling that he could not raise the children by himself, he cast about for a second wife. In December 1801, he married Mary Jane Clairmont , a well-educated woman with two young children of her own – Charles and Claire . Most of Godwin's friends disliked his new wife, describing her as quick-tempered and quarrelsome; but Godwin
32178-470: Was combined with a strong empiricism to support Godwin's belief that the evil actions of men are solely reliant on the corrupting influence of social conditions, and that changing these conditions could remove the evil in man. This is similar to the ideas of his wife, Mary Wollstonecraft , concerning the shortcomings of women as due to discouragement during their upbringing. Peter Kropotkin remarked of Godwin that when " speaking of property , he stated that
32364-489: Was confused. She saw Percy Shelley as an embodiment of her parents' liberal and reformist ideas of the 1790s, particularly Godwin's view that marriage was a repressive monopoly, which he had argued in his 1793 edition of Political Justice but later retracted. On 28 July 1814, the couple eloped and secretly left for France, taking Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont , with them. After convincing Mary Jane Godwin, who had pursued them to Calais , that they did not wish to return,
32550-415: Was devoted to her, and the marriage was a success. Mary Godwin, in contrast, came to detest her stepmother. William Godwin's 19th-century biographer Charles Kegan Paul later suggested that Mrs Godwin had favoured her own children over those of Mary Wollstonecraft. Together, the Godwins started a publishing firm called M. J. Godwin, which sold children's books as well as stationery, maps, and games. However,
32736-443: Was named in his honour Godwin Close, and a wall plaque adorns a building adjacent to the Angles Theatre in Alexandra Road. In 1793, while the French Revolution was in full swing, Godwin published his great work on political science , Enquiry concerning Political Justice, and its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness . The first part of this book was largely a recap of Edmund Burke 's A Vindication of Natural Society –
32922-422: Was never a truly mixed language in the strictest sense of the word; mixed languages arise from the cohabitation of speakers of different languages, who develop a hybrid tongue for basic communication). The more idiomatic, concrete and descriptive English is, the more it is from Anglo-Saxon origins. The more intellectual and abstract English is, the more it contains Latin and French influences, e.g. swine (like
33108-419: Was precarious. On 23 July 1823, she left Genoa for England and stayed with her father and stepmother in the Strand until a small advance from her father-in-law enabled her to lodge nearby. Sir Timothy Shelley had at first agreed to support his grandson, Percy Florence, only if he were handed over to an appointed guardian. Mary Shelley rejected this idea instantly. She managed instead to wring out of Sir Timothy
33294-414: Was pregnant again, married on 30 December 1816 at St Mildred's Church, Bread Street , London. Her father gave consent to her marriage as required for a minor aged under twenty-one and Mr and Mrs Godwin were present as witnesses who signed the register, the marriage ending the family rift. Claire Clairmont gave birth to a baby girl on 13 January, at first called Alba, later Allegra . In March of that year,
33480-432: Was regularly visiting William Godwin, whom he had agreed to bail out of debt. Percy Shelley's radicalism , particularly his economic views, which he had imbibed from William Godwin's Political Justice (1793), had alienated him from his wealthy aristocratic family: they wanted him to follow traditional models of the landed aristocracy, and he wanted to donate large amounts of the family's money to schemes intended to help
33666-436: Was still helping to support her father, and they looked out for publishers for each other. In 1830, she sold the copyright for a new edition of Frankenstein for £60 to Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley for their new Standard Novels series. After her father's death in 1836 at the age of eighty, she began assembling his letters and a memoir for publication, as he had requested in his will; but after two years of work, she abandoned
33852-435: Was the History of a Six Weeks' Tour , published in November 1817. That autumn, Percy Shelley often lived away from home in London to evade creditors. The threat of a debtor's prison , combined with their ill health and fears of losing custody of their children, contributed to the couple's decision to leave England for Italy on 12 March 1818, taking Claire Clairmont and Alba with them. They had no intention of returning. One of
34038-431: Was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother was the philosopher and women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft . Mary's mother died 11 days after giving birth to her. She was raised by her father, who provided her with a rich informal education, encouraging her to adhere to his own anarchist political theories. When she was four, her father married a neighbour, Mary Jane Clairmont , with whom Mary had
34224-405: Was the baby's mother. Biographers have offered various interpretations of these events: that Percy Shelley decided to adopt a local child; that the baby was his by Elise, Claire, or an unknown woman; or that she was Elise's by Byron. Mary Shelley insisted she would have known if Claire had been pregnant, but it is unclear how much she really knew. The events in Naples, a city Mary Shelley later called
34410-545: Was the family's mainstay for decades. In 1807 his tragedy Faulkener was performed at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane without more success than his earlier play. The eldest of Godwin's children was Fanny Imlay (1794–1816), who committed suicide as a young woman. Charles Gaulis Clairmont ended up as Chair of English literature at Vienna University and taught sons of the royal family; news of his sudden death in 1849 distressed Maximilian . Mary Godwin (1797–1851) gained fame as Mary Shelley , author of Frankenstein . Half
34596-435: Was to oversee the sweeping of the chimneys of these extensive buildings. On 16 October 1832, a fire broke out and most of the Palace burned down . Literary critic Marilyn Butler concluded her review of a 1980 biography of Godwin by comparing him favourably to Guy Fawkes : Godwin was more successful in his opposition to the status quo. In later years, Godwin came to expect support and consolation from his daughter. Two of
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