Mary Shelley gets a Blue Plaque in Bath!
Unveiled Tuesday 27 February, 2018
The 200tth Anniversary of the first publishing of Frankenstein has finally brought Mary Shelley some well-deserved and long overdue notoriety, especially in some of the places where she lived and worked.
On Tuesday, February 27, in Bath, England, where Mary Godwin did much of her research and writing of the famous novel, a blue plaque will be unveiled attached to the Victorian Era Bath Pump House which mostly replaced the building at the former Abbey Church Yard where Mary took up lodgings after returning from Geneva, that notorious summer of 1816 (see Shelleys in Bath – Frankenstein Begins).
Update: It’s not a Blue Plaque, but rather a bronze plate, privately placed with some information of Mary Shelley and the writing of “Frankenstein” on the spot in 1816-1817, placed in front of the Pump Room, over the basement.
In England, notable historic sites and buildings which warrant recognition get the honor of a round blue plaque, noting where a historically worthy person or event gets a brief description. These end up being pointed out by tour guides, or photographed by tourists.
Blue plaques to the young woman author of Frankenstein, have been notably lacking. There is one where she is buried in Bournemouth, and two in London, where she lived at Chester Square in her later life, and one in Bloomsbury where she lived briefly with Shelley in 1815 after returning from the elopement trip France and Switzerland, but until now, none where she actually worked on her novel.
I have recently seen a number of stories saying that Mary spent 6 months in Switzerland writing her book, but those months were actually spent in Bath. The Shelleys and Claire Clairmont left Geneva at the end of August, travelling back by way of France, and spent the last four months of 1816 in Bath.
The plaque and Mary Shelley’s finally getting her due in Bath is due to local fans and authorities, recognizing the almost forgotten local famous figure, where a local theater company has been performing walking tours. It has been apparently a twenty year effort to get a plaque to Shelley in Bath, after two hundred years of neglect. Why so long?
Perhaps it was the scandalous reputation which followed the Shelleys since their own time. Maybe it’s the awkward name situation. When she was in Bath, she was Mary Godwin, not becoming formally the more future famous Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley until her marriage to her poet lover after the death of the first Mrs. Shelley days after Christmas in 1816.
Now, if only Marlow would get a plaque – either blue or bronze – on the Albion House where Mary Shelley completed her classic.
Secret Memoirs of Mary Shelley – E-Book