And that very impecuniousness forced him to make a
radical decision about his life, and that decision would forever affect his
famous daughter.
Godwin married again. On May 5, 1801, he wrote in his
diary: Meet Mrs Clairmont. Mary Jane Clairmont, mother of two (by
two different fathers), was living in the same building—called “The Polygon”—in
Somers Town; they married on December 21; in 1803, she delivered their
son—William Godwin, Jr.—so little Mary, age six, would grow up in a household
with five children, none of whom had the same two parents. Let’s tick them off:
(1) Fanny Imlay Godwin (Mary Wollstonecraft and Gilbert Imlay); (2) Mary
herself (Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin); (3) Charles Clairmont (Mary
Jane Clairmont and Charles Gaulis—perhaps not married?); (4) Claire Clairmont
(Mary Jane Clairmont and a man still not identified); (5) William Godwin, Jr.
(Mary Jane Clairmont and William Godwin). The interpersonal relationships in
that family must have been … complicated, to say the least.
Mary Shelley’s biographers generally agree that she
was very happy with her father, whom she adored, and very unhappy with
arrangements after Mary Jane arrived on the scene. The stepmother—who sought
constantly to advance the reputations of her own children and was surely weary
of notables coming to their home to catch a glimpse of little Mary—did have her
virtues. She was willing to take on this wild household of children, eager to
help Godwin with his perpetual financial difficulties. Mary Jane had no money,
either, but by most accounts she was better—much
better—than the feckless Godwin about managing their wee pile of funds. He
constantly overspent—not on luxuries but on books and other research materials
to support his writing. He borrowed from anyone who would lend. Often had
problems paying back the money.
The Godwins could not make enough money to live on
with Godwin’s writing income—especially after his “scandalous” memoir about
Mary Wollstonecraft. So he and Mary Jane resolved to go in the book business
themselves, specializing in volumes for young readers. They called it M. J.
Godwin & Co. Juvenile Library. Little Mary and the other children in the
household would be among his first readers—letting him know what they thought about
the books. He would also enlist his literary friends to contribute volumes. One
of the most celebrated was Tales from
Shakespeare, 1807, by siblings Charles and Mary Lamb, a book that’s still
in print.
In 1807, the family left The Polygon and moved to a shop
on Skinner Street (Holborn) where they would live upstairs and conduct the
business downstairs.
In 1999 I spent some time in London (as I’ve said)
trying to find sites significant in Mary’s girlhood. But they are few.
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