This Is Where Mary Shelley Is Buried

Although Mary Shelley achieved modest success during her lifetime, her latter years were tumultuous and troubling. According to The Washington Post, by the 1840s, Mary Shelley had returned to England and was afflicted by frequent maladies and financial difficulties, even struggling to afford firewood at one point.

Shelley first complained in 1843 of a "pressure on the brain" in a series of letters to her step-sister, Claire Claremont. Tragically, Shelley would only survive another eight years before succumbing to an untreated brain tumor in 1851, at the age of 53. Shelley, despite recurrent migraines, speech impairments, and eventual paralysis, did not seek medical attention until it was too late (per The Washington Post).

In a spectacularly goth fashion, Shelley's surviving family and friends discovered that she had carefully wrapped her late husband's heart in poetry and silk and kept it in the desk drawer (per "Mary Shelley: Romance and Reality" by Emily Sunstein). The fact that Percey Shelley's calcified heart stayed intact while being incinerated only adds to the eerie situation (via The New York Times).

When the news of her death broke, several periodicals, somewhat infuriatingly, commemorated her primarily as Percey Shelley's widow, rather than lauding her contributions to Romantic-era literature (via ”Mary Shelly: Romance and Reality”). Thankfully, in the century or so since, much has changed, and Mary Shelley's reputation has received its due. However, much like her legacy during her lifetime, deciding where to bury Mary Shelley's remains would also be complicated.

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