
Mathilda
by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
'Mathilda' Summary
Narrating from her deathbed, Mathilda, a young woman barely in her twenties, writes her story as a way of explaining her actions to her friend, Woodville. Her narration follows her lonely upbringing and climaxes at a point when her unnamed father confesses his incestuous love for her. This is then followed by his suicide by drowning and her ultimate demise; her relationship with the gifted young poet, Woodville, fails to reverse Matilda's emotional withdrawal or prevent her lonely death.
The novella begins with readers becoming aware that this story is being narrated in the first person, by Mathilda, and that this narration is meant for a specific audience in answer to a question asked prior to the novella's beginning: "You have often asked me the cause of my solitary life; my tears; and above all of my impenetrable and unkind silence." Readers quickly learn that Mathilda is on her deathbed and this is the only reason she is exposing what seems to be a dark secret.
Mathilda's narrative first explores the relationship between her mother and father, and how they knew each other growing up. Mathilda's mother, Diana, and her father were childhood friends; Mathilda's father found solace in Diana after the death of his own mother and the two married not long after. Mathilda, as narrator, notes that Diana changed Mathilda's father making him more tender and less fickle. However, Mathilda was born a little more than a year after their marriage and Diana died a few days after her birth, causing her father to sink into a deep depression. His sister, Mathilda's aunt, came to England to stay with them and help care for Mathilda, but Mathilda's father, unable to even look at his daughter, left about a month after his wife's death and Mathilda was raised by her aunt.
Mathilda tells Woodville that her upbringing, while cold on the part of her aunt, was never neglectful; she learned to occupy her time with books and jaunts around her aunt's estate in Loch Lomond, Scotland. On Mathilda's sixteenth birthday her aunt received a letter from Mathilda's father expressing his desire to see his daughter. Mathilda describes their first three months in each other's company as being blissful, but this ended first when Mathilda's aunt dies and then, after the two return to London, upon Mathilda's father's expression of his love for her.
Leading up to the moment of revelation, Mathilda was courted by suitors which, she noticed, drew dark moods from her father. This darkness ensued causing Mathilda to plot a way of bringing back the father she once knew. She asked him to accompany her on a walk through the woods that surrounded them and, on this walk, she expressed her concerns and her wishes to restore their relationship. Her father accused her of being "presumptuous and very rash." However, this did not stop her and he eventually confessed his incestuous desire regarding her. Mathilda's father fainted and she retreated back to their home. Her father left her a note the next morning explaining that he would leave her and she understood that his actual intent was to commit suicide. Mathilda followed him, but was too late to stop him from drowning himself.
For some time after his death, Mathilda returned to society as she became sick in her attempts to stop her father. She realized, though, that she could not remain in this society and she faked her own death to ensure that no one would come looking for her. Mathilda re-established herself in a solitary house in the heath. She has a maid who came to care for the house every few days, but other than that she had no human interaction until Woodville also established residence in the heath about two years after she chose to reside there.
Woodville was mourning the loss of his betrothed, Elinor, and a poet. He and Mathilda struck a friendship; Woodville often asked Mathilda why she never smiled but she would not go into much detail regarding this. One day, Mathilda suggested to Woodville that they end their mutual sorrows together and commit suicide. Woodville talked Mathilda out of this decision, but soon after had to leave the heath to care for his ailing mother. Mathilda contemplates her future after his departure, and while walking through the heath, gets lost and ends up sleeping outside for a night. It rains while she sleeps outside and, after she makes her way back to her home, she becomes extremely sick.
It is in this state that Mathilda decides to write out her story to Woodville as a way of explaining to him her darker countenance, even though she recognizes that she does not have much longer to live.
Book Details
Authors

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
England
Mary Shelley lived a literary life. Her father encouraged her to learn to write by composing letters, and her favorite occupation as a child was writing stories. Unfortunately, all of Mary's juvenilia...
Books by Mary Wollstonecraft ShelleyDownload eBooks
Listen/Download Audiobook
- Select Speed
Related books

The Last Day of a Condemned by Victor Hugo
The Last Day of a Condemned Man is a short novel by Victor Hugo first published in 1829. The novel recounts the thoughts of a man condemned to die. Vi...

Fanny Hill by John Cleland
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure—popularly known as Fanny Hill (possibly an anglicisation of the Latin mons veneris, mound of Venus)—is an erotic novel...

Wisdom's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard
It follows the story of a young woman named Merapi. She is the daughter of the pharaoh's high priest and is beloved by all who know her. When a powerf...

Serapion by Francis Stevens
Clayton Barbour, the protagonist of 'Serapion', finds himself entangled in a chilling encounter with the supernatural. A medium warns him of an evil p...

Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
Venus in Furs is a novella by the Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, and the best known of his works. The novel was to be part of an epic seri...

Sarrasine by Honoré de Balzac
Sarrasine is a novella written by Honoré de Balzac. It was published in 1830, and is part of his Comédie Humaine.

The Defenders by Philip K. Dick
"The Defenders" is a 1953 science fiction novelette by American author Philip K. Dick, and the basis for Dick's 1964 novel The Penultimate Truth. It i...

Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things by Lafcadio Hearn
Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, often shortened to Kwaidan ("ghost story"), is a 1904 book by Lafcadio Hearn that features several Jap...

Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival by Kate Percival
This historical novel, written in the voice of its protagonist, delves into the intimate life of Kate Percival, a captivating woman navigating the soc...

Statement of Stella Maberly by F. Anstey
Stella Maberly, a young woman with a complex and troubled personality, delivers a statement reflecting on events that have led to her current predicam...
Reviews for Mathilda
No reviews posted or approved, yet...