5 h 25 minAudiobook7 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
On a bare English heath, a young woman writes the family secret she can no longer bear alone.
Mathilda believes she is close to death. Alone in a cottage, she writes her life for a friend who might understand. Her story begins with loss: her mother, Diana, dies in childbirth, and her grieving father leaves her. A cold aunt raises her in Scotland, with duty but little warmth.
When her father returns after years away, Mathilda finds the affection she longs for. Yet he carries something he cannot say, and a family secret threatens their happiness. In this short Gothic novel, Mary Shelley explores grief, guilt and isolation through Mathilda’s own voice. On the heath, the gentle poet Woodville tries to draw her toward life.
What you’ll discover
- A voice without distance Hear Mathilda tell her own story with the intimacy of a confession.
- Love shadowed by loss Follow a father and daughter whose longing for affection carries the weight of grief.
- The lonely Scottish hills Enter a childhood where nature offers comfort that a dutiful aunt cannot give.
- A friendship on the heath Meet Woodville, the gentle young poet who reaches toward Mathilda in her isolation.
- Quiet Gothic intensity Discover how silence and an unspoken secret make a quiet story feel deeply unsettling.
Who will love it
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.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A dying woman writes her confession
- A mother is lost at her birth
- A lonely childhood in the Scottish hills
- Her father returns and joy begins
- Silence, guilt and the weight of grief
- A Romantic confession told in the first person
Who’s who
- MathildaThe young woman who tells the story, raised without parents, who longs for her father's love and now writes her life from a lonely heath.
- Mathilda's fatherA man shattered by his wife's death, who abandons his baby daughter, then returns years later, haunted by something he cannot say.
- DianaMathilda's mother, a loving wife whose death in childbirth casts a long shadow over her husband and daughter.
- WoodvilleA gentle young poet who befriends Mathilda on the heath and tries to draw her back toward life.
- Mathilda's auntA cold, dutiful woman in Scotland who raises Mathilda without warmth, leaving her to find comfort in nature and her own thoughts.
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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Mathilda
by Mary Shelley · 1959
Alone on an English heath, Mathilda writes her life for a friend, revealing a family secret that poisons all it touches.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 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.
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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.
The author
Mary Shelley
1797–1851 · English Gothic novelist
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English writer born in London in 1797. She lived in England and Italy and married the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1816. She wrote Frankenstein, published in 1818, and The Last Man, published in 1826. She died in London in 1851.
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