In Search Of Mary Shelley by Fiona Sampson

'What must it be like for a child to grow in the house where her mother has died, to pass the door of the death chamber on the landing every day? Perhaps Wollstonecraft's daughters open it sometimes and step inside, looking around at the smallish, ordinary bedroom. For instance, after re-creating the tragic death of Mary Shelley's mother, the feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, 10 days after giving birth, Sampson pauses and wonders:

In fact, this is not simply a biography it is, as the title tells us, a record of Sampson's search for Shelley - a point she reminds us of by using questions like bread crumbs, steering us along the path of discovery. These glimpses of early 19th-century London bring Shelley closer to the reader, particularly as Sampson frequently writes in the present tense. That the Polygon's windows are large, Sampson points out, is evidence of modernity, especially when compared to the tiny-paned windows of the old houses in central London that 'shut out more than the cold. In Sampson's skillful hands, the play of light becomes not only an evocation of life inside the house, but also an entry into the historical setting. At times it's almost as if the households of the Polygon are performing for the street.'

Through their multiplying panes passers-by can see every detail of the rooms and the people who live in them. There's an aspect of display to the big windows of houses built, like this, in the Palladian style. At the turn of the new century, letting light in has become more important than keeping out the cold: at least, for fashionable architects and their patrons. As yet there are no buildings close by to interrupt its progress across their polished floors, and the people who live here can always tell roughly what time of day it is. 'The Polygon has tall, modern windows,' she writes. But Sampson, a poet and scholar at the University of Roehampton in London, does one better - something so simple and yet so astonishing that it sums up the magic of this book: She imagines the light streaming through the Polygon's windows, illuminating Shelley's childhood. Others have used the architect's plans to describe the mantels, the wrought iron balconies, the high ceilings and polished floors. Many have tried to re-create the Polygon, which is no longer standing, by describing the contours of the buildings and the calls of the vendors who hawked their wares in the streets. 29, the Polygon, a development north of central London, near today's St. All biographers know that Mary Shelley grew up at No.

In Search Of Mary Shelley by Fiona Sampson