Back in 1950, Muriel Spark was a 32-year-old, little known poet, she was also a fan of Mary Shelley. The two didn’t have a great deal in common, although by coincidence the anniversary of Spark’s birth is on the same day (1st February) as the anniversary of Mary Shelley’s death.
By 1950, a whole ninety-nine years since Mary Shelley died, interest in the writer had waned, in fact there was little interest in 19th century female novelists at all. By then Shelley was mostly remembered for having run away with Percy Bysshe Shelley and for the adaptations of Frankenstein. So when Muriel Spark drew up a critical biography of Shelley, it was never going to be an easy sell.
Spark’s determination to have Shelley recategorised as ‘the mother of science fiction’ was persuasive enough to win a commission from a small publisher and the original publication of Child of Light: A Reassessment of Mary Shelley was timed to coincide with the centenary of Shelley’s death in 1951. The book wasn’t hugely popular, but behind the scenes, Spark was still tinkering with the works, until eventually in 1987, the Biography would be republished.
Until then, all credit for the science-fiction genre lay with authors such as George Orwell, H. G Wells, and Aldous Huxley, but Spark’s changed the public’s perception of the 19th century author from literary hack, to creative genius.
We don’t know why Spark was drawn to Shelley so. The pair did share the important anniversary date, although without Wikipedia back then, Muriel Spark may never have known this. The pair also shared initials, M. S, and both wrote under their husband’s surnames. Both authors struggled financially while bringing up sons as single mothers, and it’s thought that Spark may have seen these coincidences as a higher power directing her towards Mary Shelley.
Now published just as Mary Shelley, the biography is one of the best known and most in depth on the 19th century author and is still in print today.
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The late Brian (W) Aldiss was also a great proponent of Mary Shelley through Frankenstein was the pioneer of Science Fiction. He defended the idea with force and cogency in his history of Science Fiction Billion (later Trillion) Year Spree. He paid his own homage to Shelley in his own ‘Frankenstein Unbound’.