A Mary Shelley story where the gayest part isn’t Lord Byron

This is a story about Mary Shelley and jealousy.

Like many stories about the Shelleys, there are a number of detours we will mention but not explore nearly enough (Lord Byron! A queer smuggler in drag!)

Because the main point of the story is jealousy, what it does to us.

And what we lose when we act out of jealousy. 

So. Mary Shelley.

Famous for many things, including but not limited to:

+ hooking up with her boyfriend on her famous feminist mom‘s grave,

+ inventing science fiction to avoid a threesome with Lord Byron,

+ the totality of Frankenstein blah blah the doctor’s name not the monster’s insert tired bit here.

Before we go any further, I should caveat: I only know this story because it was in “the laws of human nature” by Robert Greene, a writer at the top of the Twitter “don’t hook up with a man who has this on his bookshelf” list. 

—So Mary Shelley and her husband Percy Shelley were living in Italy, chilling out, raising their children, being exiled from popular English society. 

And these two hipster types, Jane and Edwards Williams, move to town.

Mary Shelley and Percy Shelley were kind of a big deal, even though they were in exile from polite English society. The Williams asked to hang out, the way you would ask someone who is really famous on Twitter to hang out if they lived in South Dakota and you moved to Nebraska. Mary and Percy agreed. 

Mary had just lost a child, and maybe had some postpartum shit going on?

She and Percy were not doing well, and they were looking for… Friends. Connection.

Fun in their lives.

Jane and Edward were, according to Mary Shelley‘s diary, kind of boring at first. They were… overly agreeable in a way Mary Shelley, goth queen, found really tedious. Percy, definitely the himbo in their relationship, was like, these guys are great!

He was really into Jane Williams in particular. Apparently this was kind of a pattern for Percy Shelley: his first wife was… nice but kind of boring? Then he married Mary Shelley, then…

Well. No spoilers. 

The two couples start hanging out, and Percy and Edward got really into sailing. This is the most “dudes rock” part of the story. Percy Shelley, as is often discussed, had myriad dreams and premonitions about his death by drowning, but also apparently never learned to swim. Seems like a weirdly fatalistic choice, but of course, Percy Shelley and weirdly fatalistic go together. 

As the two couples grew closer, Mary wrote to a friend who knew Jane.

The friend wrote something back like “This girl is a fugly slut. Do not trust her!”

But at that point, Mary Shelley is lonely and the two couples are already enmeshed, so she ignores it. Mary has also discovered the couples have something in common: they were both exiled from polite English society for their love. This engenders deep sympathy from Mary Shelley and her relationship with Jane grows. 

Percy and Jane start having some sort of dalliance at this point — regardless of whether or not Mary Shelley knew about it, she was not exactly threatened.

Like when someone you’re dating starts dating someone else who kind of looks like you, but has a worse haircut.

Just me? OK.

Eventually, the four of them move to a secluded part of Italy, and Mary Shelley starts to have some misgivings. 

Apparently neither Edward or Jane were particularly interested in keeping a house together, and I mean… you can guess Percy Shelley wasn’t exactly great at it from his poetry. 

So Mary Shelley is living in the worst co-op ever, the kind where no one has a bed frame or ever does the dishes. 

Then Percy and Edward are like “Guess what you guys! We’re going to go on a sailing trip! In the middle of a storm! OK bye!”

Mary Shelley has deep misgivings about this, but, again, “dudes rock,” so… off they go. 

As you know if you know anything about mega goth Percy Shelley: they died. 

The ship went down in the storm.

Fuck! 

Mary Shelley, had already dealt with some shit in her life, and she was devastated by this. Jane probably was too. 

But Jane was in a different economic situation than Mary Shelley, and decided she needs to go back to London ASAP to try to make a living for herself with her children. 

I don’t think she was actually going to “make a living,” that sounds very 21st-century. But like, I guess she was going to live with rich relations or something? Maybe remarry? I don’t know anything about 1820. 

Anyway. So Jane goes off to London, leaving depressed Mary behind, and takes with her a list of contacts and a note like “this is my friend Jane, be nice to her! Sincerely Mary Shelley.”

After a while, Mary is like… OK. Gotta stop brooding. I mean, I don’t know if she actually got tired of brooding, she was Mary Shelley. Maybe she was like “the amount of brooding I’m doing on a daily basis is perfectly fine w me, a phenomenal way to honor my late broody husband.” But she did decide to take action.

She writes to Jane and a number of other friends in London,  like “hey guys, should I come back or what?” 

All of them write back to her in a manner Robert Greene describes as “cold,” like when you text someone and they text you back “haha” but don’t say anything else.

Jane in particular is ICE COLD. She’s like “mmm maybe you should just give them the kids away and stay in Italy forever. Bye!” 

This does not sit well with Mary Shelley. She decides to come back to London anyway. 

When she gets there… it’s crazy. 

Frankenstein has taken off. Her notoriety and social status are significant. 

In spite of this, her friends are… kind of weird to her.

People who had been in her life for years are cold, brush her off. 

But Jane is the same as ever: alternately distant and overly ingratiating. A little bit needy.

By the way, Lord Byron during all of this is like “Mary Shelley for life!“ even while all of her other friends are being mean to her. And after his death, Mary Shelley’s notoriety grows even more — everyone is like “what was it like to be friends with the worst bisexual of all time?” 

In the middle of her fame, Mary Shelley befriends a woman who is pregnant out of wedlock, which even I know enough about 1820 to know was not cool.

Mary Shelley helps her get smuggled to Italy with the help of a queer woman who does heists. It’s incredible. 

Anyway, before that girl goes to Italy, she’s like, “Mary Shelley, thank you so much for helping me go to Italy with this Queer swashbuckler! Everything everyone says about you is totally wrong! “

And Mary Shelley’s like “wait…what does everyone say about me?”

And the girl’s like... “Uh...”

It turns out Jane Williams is not the boring, tedious nice girl we all thought she was. 

Since Jane got to London, she has told a false story A false story about Mary and Percy Shelley, and her relationship with them.

That she, Jane, was the true love of Percy‘s life, and that he had grown tired of Mary, longed to divorce her. 

That Mary had never really loved Percy at all, that she had tied herself to him in an attempt to grow her power and wealth. 

You know… All the things that Jane had… Actually done.

Mary Shelley is pissed. She confronts Jane — in a real liar’s gambit, Jane denied it all. When denial doesn’t work, she appeals to

Mary’s empathy for the downtrodden, saying that she had to do it in order to survive. Mary is like… What the fuck. No. 

Their friendship is over, of course. 

But Mary Shelley being Mary Shelley, writes about it obsessively in her diary for years to come. 

Jane had “Taken sweetness from memory... and replac[ed] it with a serpent’s tooth.”

DAMN. 

Robert Greene shares this story, misogynist bro he is, with the idea that you, the reader, relate to Mary Shelley. 

He frames the story as: how can I keep myself from being betrayed by those lesser and weaker than me?

LMAO. Who is reading a self-help book while asking that question? My God. 

If I related to Mary Shelley (beyond her Goth sensibility and willingness to take on incredible intellectual feats to avoid sex with Lord Byron), I wouldn’t be looking to Robert fucking Greene for answers.

So, the first time I read this, I thought, “Wow. This story is gay.” So gay.

Extremely gay. 

Not just the parts with the queer swashbuckler and Lord Byron. 

The whole deal is gay.

But then I thought:

“Oh no. When I say something is “gay**“… Do I mean… something darker? Beyond just emotionally intense? Do I mean… weirdly fraught with power dynamics and  envy?“

Robert Greene goes on to tell you the best way to avoid a false flatterer, a secret jealous rival, is — well, he starts talking about micro-expressions and stuff. I guess I can see why he’s on that Twitter list.

But he has no advice for the Jane Williams of the world.

For people who desire closeness with someone they admire, but end up lost in obsessive feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. 

(Because don’t doubt for a second that Jane Williams was obsessed with Mary Shelley. There’s a whole subplot here I cut where she slept with Mary‘s best friend in order to make her jealous. Gay.) 

So what IS the main takeaway here for the Jane Williams of the world, beyond “if you spread rumors about someone and try to sleep with her boyfriend, it will blow up in your face, so you should just tell you how you feel.”

I mean actually, that’s a pretty good takeaway.

But I think there’s something deeper.

At least, I hope to God there is, otherwise I just shared a lot of things about myself I would prefer to keep hidden for a relatively self evident truth. 

Here’s the deeper truth: obsession, at least when it comes to a person, is rarely related to intimacy, real intimacy. 

And I think that’s what makes this story a tragedy, a real tragedy, rather than just “All About Eve” Victorian edition.

Because both of these two women? 

They were really fucking lonely, albeit in different ways.

They both needed a fucking friend.

But Jane’s jealousy didn’t let that happen. 

So: they both stayed lonely. 

The End.

PS — Also, himbos? Don’t sail your boat in the middle of a storm.

*Other things I find gay: 

Wuthering Heights, the New Testament, certain parts of Amadeus, most Sarah Waters novels, this cannibalism exhibit Ernestina and I went to once.