Mary Shelley's letter to Maria Gisborne

Abstract

This paper focuses on Mary Shelley’s letter to her friend Maria Gisborne. In this letter Mary Shelley describes the last days of her husband P. B. Shelley and does so in ways which emphasise a certain set of gothic and uncanny events. The paper argues that such uncanny events are part of both writers concern with metalepsis, a figure which involves or at least invokes the reversal of time and space. The paper formed part of a special memorial edition of La Questione Romantica, which honoured the life and work of the editor of Mary Shelley’s letters, Professor Betty T. Bennett.