Mathilda

Summary

'I am in a strange state of mind. I am alone—quite alone—in the world—the blight of misfortune has passed over me and withered me; I know that I am about to die and I feel happy—joyous—'

The eponymous heroine of Mathilda narrates a tale of incestuous love from her deathbed. Her father's suicide by drowning, and her relationship with a gifted young poet, both contribute to her emotional withdrawal and lonely demise.

This edition of Shelley's second novel, transcribed and introduced by Deanna Koretsky, explores the work both as a complex portrayal of taboo desires and as an intergenerational story of reckoning with the horrors of racism and patriarchy. Mathilda is often read as biographical, but this edition also highlights the issues of justice, gender, and rights. Illuminating Shelley's evolving views on activism and social reform, sexual fluidity, and the racial implications of her feminist politics, Koretsky uncovers Shelley's deep skepticism about the capacity of English society to adapt to changing demographics and bring about a more just world.