Mary Shelley’s Family Tree Quiz

From ghoulies, ghosties and long-legged beasties to things that go bump in the night, it’s one of our favorite times of year: Halloween.

In the laboratory spotlight is Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, better known as Mary Shelley. Although she penned other novels, Shelley’s best-known for her Gothic classic, Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus, published in 1818. Her own life reads like a nightmare on Elm Street: Born Aug. 30, 1797, in London, Shelley grew up motherless (her mom died 11 days after giving birth to her), lost a sister to suicide and buried three children.

In 1822, her husband, Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley, drowned, leaving her a widow at 25. Shelley never remarried and died in 1851 at age 53. 

To pay homage to the Queen of Halloween, we unmask her family history with this quiz. How well do you know Mary Shelley?

Mary Shelley Genealogy Quiz

1. Shelley’s mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, wrote

a. Wuthering Heights
b. Dracula
c. The Fall of the House of Usher
d. A Vindication of the Rights of Women

 2. Shelley’s only surviving child was named

a. Victor
b. Percy
c. Igor
d. William

3. Shelley’s paternal ancestors were from

a. England
b. Transylvania
c. Germany
d. Russia

4. Because Percy Bysshe Shelley was still married, he and Mary met secretly at

a. The grave of Mary’s mother
b. An abandoned castle
c. Salem’s Lot
d. A shack in the woods

5. Mary and Percy Shelley eloped

a. on Halloween night
b. to France, when Mary was just 16
c. in a horse-drawn hearse
d. by stealing a pair of black horses

6. The Shelleys were advocates of

a. vegetarianism
b. the women’s movement
c. donating their bodies to science
d. strictly monogamous relationships

7. Shelley’s grandfather John Goodwin

a. was a mad scientist
b. had a buffalo hump on his left shoulder
c. was a professional grave robber
d. was a Nonconformist Calvinist minister

8. Shelley wrote Frankenstein

a. on a challenge from Lord Byron
b. to submit to a writing contest
c. to complement her husband’s play Prometheus Unbound
d. to compete with Dracula

9. Upon Percy Bysshe Shelley’s death, his heart

a. grew three sizes
b. was used in a heart transplant
c. was snatched from the funeral pyre and given to Mary
d. was donated to the Smithsonian

10. Shelley was buried

a. in an undisclosed location
b. underneath their family mansion
c. with her parents in Bournemouth, England

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Answers

1. d. The British feminist’s seminal work argued that women weren’t inferior to men, but they lacked the education to gain equal footing in society.

2. b. Mary Shelley’s only surviving child was named Percy Florence Shelley, who later became an author himself.

3. a

4. a

5. b. He married 16-year-old Harriet Westbrook Aug. 28, 1811. She drowned herself Dec. 30, 1816.

6. a. There is evidence that both Mary and Percy practiced vegetarianism.

7. d. Shelley’s grandfather, John Goodwin, was a prominent theologian who challenged the prevailing Calvinist beliefs of the time.

8. a. Byron challenged the three writers – Percy, Mary and himself – to see who could write the best ghost story.

9. c. Percy’s heart was given to Mary, who kept it the rest of her life. The heart was interred next to her grave.

10. c

A version of this article originally ran in the November 2008 issue of Family Tree Magazine.