Story summary
Краткое содержание: Матильда
- Чтение: 8 мин.
- 8 parts
- Аудио скоро
A dying woman on a snowy heath writes down the secret she hides from her friend Woodville.
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Матильда — кратко о книге
Краткое содержание: 8 min на чтение
- Время чтения
- Около 3 h 15 min2 h 35 min fast, 3 h 50 min slow
- Длительность
- Слов: 45 800
- Уровень в библиотеке
- Средний longer sentences, everyday words
- Первая публикация
- 1959by Мэри Уолстонкрафт Шелли
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Сколько времени нужно на чтение классики · Обновлено
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Матильда in short
Raised without affection, Mathilda finds love unexpectedly, then loses it for reasons she must conceal. The story moves from a dying woman on a snowy heath back through her father's marriage, her cold childhood, and the brief joy of his return. Then a change darkens everything, and it leads her to a lonely cottage and a friend who tries to save her.
What Матильда is about
It is four o'clock on a winter afternoon, and the sun has gone down over a snowy heath. A young woman sits in a cottage where no sound of life reaches her. She is thin and feverish, and she is sure she will not see another summer. What does a person write when it is the last task she will ever do? She has chosen the one story she never dared to tell.
Mathilda is a short novel by Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. She wrote it in Italy in 1819 and 1820, after the deaths of two of her children. It is a letter from a dying woman to her friend Woodville, and it explains why she lives alone and weeps.
Для кого. Lovers of gothic intensity, intimate first-person storytelling and untamed landscapes will find much to admire here. Readers devoted to Mary Shelley and Romantic poetry will value its emotional depth.
The story in 8 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
A dying woman writes her secret for a friend
Mathilda opens with a dated note, Florence, November 9, 1819. The narrator lives alone in a cottage on a wide heath. Snow covers the ground, and a few birds peck at the ice on the pools. She is young, but she is sure she is dying, and she says she feels joyful.
She writes for Woodville, a kind friend who has often asked why she lives alone, why she weeps, and why she keeps so silent. In life she never dared to answer him. Now, with death near, she will.
She compares her tale to the grove of the Eumenides, a place only the dying may enter, and she sees herself as Oedipus. This is a story she thought too sacred and too terrible to speak while she was full of life. She records no crimes. Her faults came from poor judgment, and a hideous necessity ruled her fate.
You know from the first page that happiness once filled her life and that death is near. Every scene of joy is told from the cold side of loss.
The story is told by a dying woman, so every happy memory is already touched by grief.
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Her father's love for Diana shapes her fate
Before she tells her own story, Mathilda tells her father's.
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A lonely childhood by Loch Lomond forms a dreamer
Mathilda is left with her father's half sister, who lives on an estate by Loch Lomond in Scotland.
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Her father returns and a paradise begins
On Mathilda's sixteenth birthday, a letter comes from her father.
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Sudden coldness turns joy into fear
The change begins with a visitor.
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Solitude on the heath is both refuge and prison
After the loss that ends her old life, Mathilda chooses a hermit's existence.
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Woodville offers sympathy and an argument for hope
Woodville first speaks with Mathilda after his horse throws him on the heath.
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A voice, a frame and a vision shape the telling
Mary Shelley tells this story as a confession, and the voice is its strength.
Read all 8 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Mathilda The narrator, a lonely, dreamy girl raised in Scotland, who longs for her father's love and writes her story as she is dying.
- Her father A rich, passionate man who loses his wife at his daughter's birth, wanders for sixteen years, and returns longing for happiness.
- Diana Mathilda's mother, a gentle and well-read neighbor's daughter whom the father loves from boyhood and who dies days after giving birth.
- Woodville A young poet grieving for his lost bride, who befriends Mathilda on the heath and tries to lead her back toward hope.
- Mathilda's aunt The father's older half sister, cold and reserved, who raises Mathilda at Loch Lomond and shows her little affection.
- Elinor Woodville's fiancee, a lovely and generous heiress who dies shortly before their wedding, leaving him in grief.
How it ends (spoiler)
Mathilda's father leaves a letter and disappears. She chases him through a thunderstorm and finds him dead by the sea, a suicide. She fakes her own death to escape her family and lives alone on a heath. Woodville befriends her and talks her out of a plan to die with him. After a night lost in the cold, she falls ill with consumption. She writes her story, says farewell to Woodville, and waits calmly to meet her father in death.
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Вопросы о книге Матильда
What is Mathilda by Mary Shelley about?
It follows a young woman who writes her life story for a friend as she is dying. She describes a lonely childhood, a joyful reunion with her father, a heartbreaking change in him, and the grief and solitude that follow.
When was Mathilda written and why was it not published sooner?
Mary Shelley wrote it in 1819 and 1820. Her father, William Godwin, kept the manuscript and it was not printed in her lifetime. It reached readers only in the twentieth century.
Who is Woodville in Mathilda?
Woodville is a young poet who has lost his fiancee Elinor. He meets Mathilda on her heath, becomes her friend, and tries to ease her sorrow. The whole book is written as a letter to him.
What does the Fields of Fancy mean in Mathilda?
It is a short dream vision in which the spirit Fantasia leads the narrator to the Elysian gardens, where Diotima, the teacher of Socrates, speaks to souls about knowledge and beauty. It stands apart from the main tale.
Is Mathilda easy to read and worth reading?
The book is short, told in a direct first-person voice, and split into clear chapters. It offers vivid landscapes, strong feeling and a window onto Mary Shelley's mind beyond Frankenstein, which many readers find rewarding.
Как сослаться на это издание
Shelley, Mary. Mathilda. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/mathilda.
Shelley, M. (2026). Mathilda. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/mathilda (Original work published 1959)
Shelley, Mary. Mathilda. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/mathilda.
@book{shelley2026mathilda,
author = {Shelley, Mary},
title = {Mathilda},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/mathilda},
note = {First published 1959}
}
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