Mary Shelley was born in 1797, the only daughter of William Godwin the philosopher and writer and Mary Wollstonecraft, the radical author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Her mother died a few days after her birth. In 1814 she left England with Percy Bysshe Shelley, and married him in 1816 on the death of his wife. She returned to England in 1823 after her husband's death. Shelley is best remembered as the author of Frankenstein, but she wrote several other works including novels, biographies and short stories. She died in 1851.