She was born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, in London in 1797, to the radical feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and the philosopher William Godwin. Her mother died soon afterwards; her father found another partner, and young Mary was brought up with stepsiblings and with Wollstonecraft’s daughter, Fanny Imlay. She read voraciously, learned five languages, and was used to meeting her father’s literary friends, including William Hazlitt, Charles Lamb and Coleridge.

In 1807 the family moved to Holborn, where Mary could hear the screams of animals being slaughtered in the candlelit abattoirs under Smithfield. As she suffered from poor health, she was sent away for long periods to recuperate. During one memorable journey she hid her money carefully in her stays for safety; nevertheless it was stolen from her! From the age of thirteen she had terrible eczema, possibly triggered by her poor relationship with her stepmother.

The poet Percy Shelley was already married when he became involved with Mary. They began to meet secretly by Wollstonecraft’s grave. In 1814 Shelley left his pregnant wife to elope with Mary, who was also expecting a baby. They took with them her stepsister, Jane (later Claire) Clairmont, and this scandalous triangular relationship lasted for eight years as they moved between England, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. Mary’s first published work, the co-authored text History of a Six Weeks Tour (published 1817), described some of their travels.