Mary Shelley, Matilda

Graham Allen (University College Cork)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.06: English Writing and Culture of the Romantic Period, 1789-1837.
Vol. editors: Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Daniel Robinson (Widener University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1819 - 1820

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novella

Resources

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Mary Shelley’s

Matilda

, written between August 1819 and early 1820, was not published until Elizbathe Nitchie’s edition in 1959 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press). The story of the novella’s composition and subsequent neglect (with regard to publication) is a strange one and in many ways still dominates its critical reception. First drafted as “The Fields of Fancy” in response to Wollstonecraft’s fragment “The Cave of Fancy,” Mary Shelley rewrote her text as

Matilda

(for both texts see

The Novels and Selected Writings of Mary Shelley

, 8 Vols. Gen. Ed. Nora Crook,

Matilda, Dramas, Reviews & Essays, Prefaces and Notes

, Vol.2., ed. Pamela Clemit, London: Pickering and Chatto, 1996; hereafter

NWSMS

2). Both drafts, however, were written in the immediate…

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2616 words

Citation: Allen, Graham. "Matilda". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 February 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=14898, accessed 20 April 2024.]

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