Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Mathilda Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Mathilda, or Matilda, is the second long work of fiction of Mary Shelley, written between August 1819 and February 1820. Narrating from her deathbed, Mathilda, a young woman barely in her twenties, writes her story as a way of explaining her actions to her friend, Woodville. Her narration follows her lonely upbringing and climaxes at a point when her unnamed father confesses his incestuous love for her. This is then followed by his suicide by drowning and her ultimate death; her relationship with the gifted young poet, Woodville, fails to reverse Matilda's emotional withdrawal or prevent her lonely death.