Back to Mary in 1827, when she meets Frances Wright, the great social reformer.
On August
22, 1827, Mary received a significant letter. For the nonce, she was living in
Arundel, about sixty miles slightly southwest of London, near the Channel, and
only about seventy-five miles east of Bournemouth, where her remains now lie.
She liked it
there in Arundel, a market town, where she had moved on September 3. Her friend
and fellow widow (from that 1822 boating accident that took Bysshe Shelley’s
life), Jane Williams, had since remarried to an old school friend of Bysshe’s,
Thomas Jefferson Hogg, who, once upon a time, had made moves on Mary herself.
Anyway, in a September letter to Jane, Mary told of her affection for Arundel,
praising the beauty and … scenery of
the town, especially its park, its
streams and woodland glades … sources of never ending pleasure. She also
mentions that they have not seen the
Castle, the traditional home of the Duke of Norfolk.[1] I
saw it from a train on April 15, 1999, on my way to see Bysshe’s boyhood home.
In my journal that day I commented about the
glorious castle of that name [Arundel], seat of the Duke of Norfolk, whom PBS
and his father both employed to help in their estrangement after PBS’s expulsion
from Oxford & his elopement with Harriet.
Mary
occasionally received letters from people who’d admired her mother, Mary
Wollstonecraft, and her father, William Godwin. And this August 22 letter was
one of those. It was from social reformer Frances Wright (1795–1852), a woman
whose lifespan was almost identical to Mary’s (1797–1851). We’ll get into Fanny’s
reform passions in a moment, but let’s add a little more here first.
Fanny’s hand-delivered
letter came via Robert Dale Owen, son of the founder of the New Harmony utopian
colony in Indiana, the founder who’d been a friend of Mary’s father. So there
are many fibers in this particular web of friendship and association. The younger
Owen had met Fanny Wright earlier, knew Mary, and it was no doubt through him
that she learned about Mary Shelley. Fanny believed the daughter of Mary
Wollstonecraft must surely be an ally
in causes of social reform. And she had
an amazing one in progress (more later!).
Fanny begins
the letter by effusively praising Mary’s (liberal/radical) parents. Then she
turns to Mary herself, observing that, surely, you share at once the sentiments and talents of those from whom you
drew your being.[2]
 |
| Frances Wright |
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