Welcome to Litsy!

It is only 4 o‘clock; but it is winter and the sun has already set: there are no clouds in the clear, frosty sky, to reflect it slant beams, but the air itself is tinged with a slight roseate color which is again reflected on the snow that covers the ground. I live in a lone cottage on a solitary, wide heath: no voice of life, reaches me.
There‘s much that annoyed me but I can‘t deny the writing is exquisite. #funsizefiction

The year after publishing the 1818 edition of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley began working on her second full fictional work which would not be published until 1959. There is a plot summary & brief synopsis of how Mathilda was refused to be published during her lifetime via the below publisher's link below. This is one of the darkest 19th c works of fiction I have read in awhile. Darker than Frankenstein in some of the philosophical implications.👇

I've read this novella which had been left unpublished for a long time because of its "shocking" content. Having that knowledge beforehand, I was expecting so much more... The beginning starts good, but once I read past what Matilda considers to be the tragedy of her life, I honestly found it too whiny... I couldn't wait for the end, I wouldn't have finished it if it wasn't for a book club.

So, there‘s a new movie coming out about Mary Shelley. Do yourself a favor: skip the movie and read Matilda. Editor Michelle Faubert‘s intro brilliantly situates not only the book in the time period, it demonstrates the questions that drove Shelley and which make her an important Romantic voice.

Speak of Mary Shelley...I finished this one on #serialreader and it was so good. This book was banned from the moment it was published and stayed that way until the 1950s. Its about the forbbiden love of a father and daughter and all the doom it brings. Some have said that this book was really about Mary Shelley and her father but there is no real evidence of that. Anyway, definitely recommend.

Matilda is a novella filled with Gothic horror, incest, desire, despair. As with most Gothic romance, it's not for the faint hearted! But Shelley adds to the great line of Romantic Matildas: transgressive female characters subverting gender roles. The origins of the name (above) explains it all #girlpower

So one of my reading goals this year is to read more classics. I bought the famous Penguin 80th anniversary box with 80 classics, but I haven't read any of them yet... I've also started collecting the new ones Penguin released. So here's to hoping I'll get around to reading these 🤓 #penguinclassics #classics

Experiment of trying Serial Reader: pick! Fun! Helpful! The book I picked to read: no! Obnoxious! All dramatic letters and speeches with suicide attempts and hints of incest thrown in for good measure.

My new stash of joy.