MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY

first published: 1826

setting: England 2070

first person narrator: Lionel Verney

volume one

chapter one

In the first chapter there is the story of a certain nobleman. The narration of the brief life of this man is told by his son, who is the narrator.

Mary Shelley

Soon the narrator tells us that his home is Britain but he doesn’t say when. So we miss the second parameter of the setting of the novel. The narrator (he doesn’t say his name or age in the moment of narration) spends a couple of pages to recount his father’s ups and downs. His father is presented as a very gifted man, acquainted with the King of England himself, who is very fond of him. Unfortunately, the narrator’s father among his many talents lacked of reason and sense of responsibility. He likes gambling, and dissipates all his fortune at the gambling table. The King of England helps him many times, but eventually is forced to abandon him to his destiny, also compelled by his Queen. The narrator’s father escapes away from London and the court, hunted by creditors. He takes refuge in the country and marries a humble woman, daughter of a poor cottager under whose roof he was lodged. Two children were born (a boy, the narrator [here we learn that the narrator is a male], and a girl). The narrator’s father dies leaving a letter in which he asks for the help of his crowned friend for the sustainment of his family. Unfortunately, the letter doesn’t sort the effect wanted and the narrator’s mother dies, too. The two orphans are left alone in an unfriendly environment. The boy becomes a scoundrel, not rarely imprisoned for robbery. The girl becomes a solitary being. The chapter ends with an anticipation: the narrator says that he was well ahead in the career of robbing and evil, he was on the brink of a precipice and he would follow this destiny for sure, but the advent of a stranger was going to change his life completely. The technique is well known and the author (Mary Shelley) also used it in Frankenstein. We may also quote Defoe in Robinson Crusoe for the same device (the final sentence of a chapter anticipates something of the following one).