Riassunto
Riassunto di Mathilda
A chi è rivolto
For readers who love Frankenstein and want to see another side of Mary Shelley, and anyone drawn to Romantic and Gothic fiction about grief, isolation and family secrets.
Che cos’è questo libro
Mathilda is a short novel by Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. She wrote it in Italy in 1819 and 1820, in the years after she lost two of her young children. It was never printed in her lifetime. The manuscript stayed out of public view for well over a century, and the book first appeared in print in 1959. Since then readers have come to see it as one of the most personal things she wrote.
The story is told by a young woman named Mathilda. She is alive but worn down, living alone on a bare heath in England, and she believes she is close to death. She writes out the history of her life for a friend, so that he will understand her. What she offers you is a short, intense account of loss, loneliness and a family secret that poisons everything it touches. It is a quiet book, but its feeling runs deep. Let us begin with the pages Mathilda writes, and the reason she writes them.
In questo riassunto
- 1A dying woman writes her confessionFree
- 2A mother is lost at her birth
- 3A lonely childhood in the Scottish hills
- 4Her father returns and joy begins
- 5Silence, guilt and the weight of grief
- 6A Romantic confession told in the first person
Punto chiave 1 di 6
A dying woman writes her confession
The book opens with Mathilda already near the end of her life. She lives in a lonely cottage on a heath, far from towns and from anyone who knows her past. She has chosen this place on purpose, because she wants to be left alone with her sorrow. Her health is failing, and she says plainly that she does not expect to live long.
She is not entirely alone, though. She has come to know a young poet named Woodville, who lives nearby. He is gentle and thoughtful, and he has been trying to draw her back toward life. He has noticed her sadness and wants to help her, but she has never told him what lies behind it.
So she decides to write it all down. The manuscript is addressed to Woodville, and she means it to be read after she is gone. She does not write to be pitied. She writes because she wants one person to know the truth of what happened to her, and because telling it is a kind of release.
This opening sets the mood for the whole book. We know from the start that Mathilda is grieving and that something terrible has already happened. The question is not whether she will suffer but how she came to this place. Her story begins long before the heath, at the moment of her birth.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about Mathilda
What is Mathilda by Mary Shelley about?
It is a short novel told by Mathilda, a young woman who loses her mother at birth, grows up without her father, and later suffers through a painful family secret. She writes her story while living alone and expecting to die.
When was Mathilda written and why was it not published sooner?
Shelley wrote it in Italy in 1819 and 1820. It was not published in her lifetime, and it first appeared in print in 1959. Its painful subject is often given as the reason it stayed unseen.
Who is Woodville in Mathilda?
Woodville is a young poet whom Mathilda meets near her cottage on the heath. He is kind and wants to comfort her, and she writes her life story for him. Readers often link him to Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Is Mathilda based on Mary Shelley's own life?
It is fiction, but it echoes her life. Shelley's mother died soon after her birth, her father William Godwin loomed large in her youth, and she wrote it while grieving the loss of her own children.
Is Mathilda hard to read?
It is short and the language is clear. Its subject is painful.