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The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: Selections Annotated and Explained Russell McNeil, PhD Editor, Malaspina Great Books In 1862 the English literary critic and poet Matthew Arnold described Marcus Aurelius as "the most beautiful figure in history." The Stoicism of Aurelius is grounded in rationality and rests solidly on an ethical approach rooted in nature. Stoicism promises real happiness and joy in this life and a serenity that can never be soured by personal misfortune. This philosophy has universal appeal with practical implications on problems ranging from climate change and terrorism to the personal management of sickness, aging, depression and addiction. I truly believe that the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius has much to offer us now...(Click on book cover for more)

Category:	Romantic Literature
Name:	Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Birth Year:	1797
Death Year:	1851
Representative Image:
Biography, Lectures, and Research Links:	Biography Blog Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley SEARCH NOW: by title by author English writer, only daughter of William Godwin and his wife Mary Wollstonecraft, and second wife of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley who she married in 1816 after the suicide of his first wife. She was born in London on the 30th of August 1797. When she was in Switzerland with Shelley and Byron in 1816 staying at Lord Byron's villa on Lake Geneva, a proposal was made that various members of the party should write a romance or tale dealing with the supernatural. The result of this project was that Mrs Shelley wrote Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus. Byron the beginning of a narrative about a vampyre, and Dr Polidori, Byron's physician, a tale named The Vampyre, the authorship of which used frequently in past years to be attributed to Byron himself. Frankenstein, published in 1818, when Mrs Shelley was at the utmost twenty-one years old, is a very remarkable performance for so young and inexperienced a writer; its main idea is that of the formation and vitalization, by a deep student of the secrets of nature, of an adult man, who, entering the world thus under unnatural conditions, becomes the terror of his species, a half involuntary criminal, and finally an outcast whose sole resource is self-immolation. She incorporated a number of different sources into her work, not the least being the Promethean myth from Ovid. The influence of John Milton's Paradise Lost can also be discerned within the novel. This romance was followed by others: Valperga, or the Life and Adventures of Castruccia, Prince of Lucca (1823), an historical tale written with a good deal of spirit, and readable enough even now; The Last Man (1826), a fiction of the final agonies of human society owing to the universal spread of a pestilence - this is written in a very stilted style, but possesses a particular interest because Adrian is a portrait of Shelley; The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck (1830); Lodore (1835), also bearing partly upon Shelley's biography, and Falkuer (1837). Besides these novels there was the Journal of a Six Weeks' Tour (the tour of 1814 mentioned below), which is published in conjunction with Shelley's prose-writings; and Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840 - 1842 - 1843 (which shows an observant spirit, capable of making some true forecasts of the future), and various miscellaneous writings. After the death of Shelley, for whom she had a deep and even enthusiastic affection, marred at times by defects of temper, Mrs Shelley in the autumn of 1823 returned to London. At first the earnings of her pen were her only sustenance; but after a while Sir Timothy Shelley made her an allowance, which would have been withdrawn if she had persisted in a project of writing a full biography of her husband. In 1838 she edited Shelley's works, supplying the notes that throw such invaluable light on the subject. She succeeded, by strenuous exertions, in maintaining her son Percy at Harrow and Cambridge; and she shared in the improvement of his fortune when in 1840 his grandfather acknowledged his responsibilities and in 1844 he succeeded to the baronetcy. She died on the 21st of February 1851. [This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License and uses material adapted in whole or in part from the Encyclopedia Britannica (1911) and the Wikipedia article on Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.] The Great Books: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Please browse our Amazon list of titles about Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. For rare and hard to find works we recommend our Alibris list of titles about Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Post Comments, Questions or Suggestions! This database is maintained by Malaspina Great Books.
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Best Choice Books, Music, Art:	Frankenstein: The 1818 Text The Last Man Selected Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
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Records from Related Period and Category:	Romantic Literature

About this Database:

This web page is part of a biographical database on Great Ideas. These are living ideas that have shaped, defined and directed world culture for over 2,500 years. By definition the Great Ideas are radical. As such they are sometimes misread, or distorted by popular simplifications. Understanding a Great Idea demands personal engagement. Our selection of Great Ideas is drawn from literature and philosophy, science, art, music, theatre, and cinema. We also include biographies of pivotal historical and religious figures, as well as contributions from women and other historically under-represented minorities. The result is an integrated multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary database built upon the framework of the always controversial Great Books Core List published in 1940 by the late Great Books Pioneer Mortimer Adler (1902-2001). Most of the works on that list are available in the 60 volume Great Books of the Western World.