Visitors to the Keats-Shelley House often ask what Mary Shelley's life was really like, especially following the death of her beloved husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley.

This new temporary exhibition will examine fragments of her life, and of other female figures connected with her. In turns tragic and melancholy, but always fascinating, the exhibition offers a glimpse into the real conditions of women's lives from the late eighteenth to the early nineteenth centuries. Visitors will also have the chance to see a series of eight manuscripts from the Bodleian Library of the University of Oxford, on loan to the Keats-Shelley House among other treasures from our permanent collection, many of which have never been shown to the public before.