Susan Thomas, Head of Archives & Modern Manuscripts, writes: The Bodleian Libraries is grateful to the Friends of the National Libraries for its support towards our purchase of a manuscript fragment of Mary Shelley’s short story ‘The Invisible Girl’. The story was first published in The Keepsake annual of 1833, where it is described as being ‘by the Author of Frankenstein’. The manuscript is the second of what is presumed to be four original fair copy bifolia, sent to the editor of The Keepsake, Frederic Mansel Reynolds, in July 1832; the fourth and final bifolium – capturing the story’s conclusion - is held at the New York Public Library as part of the Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle. The whereabouts of the presumed first and third portions of the total manuscript of ‘The Invisible Girl’ are unknown, making the two extant portions of particular importance.
The survival of an original author’s manuscript for a published work is relatively unusual for this period when manuscripts were not usually retained beyond publication. Whilst this manuscript is likely to be a fair copy rather than an early draft, it includes over 50 emendations (one being the name of the heroine), giving the opportunity to compare it with Mary Shelley’s other writing and editing. The contrast between the writing of the young Mary Shelley with Percy Bysshe Shelley by her side and Mary Shelley as an independent and accomplished author is also of note. The story's autobiographical tones are also interesting, particularly the importance to the plot of the forbidding father-in-law who frowned upon his son’s choice of wife. Shelley’s own relationship with her father-in-law, Sir Timothy Shelley, was known to be difficult right up until his death in 1844
As the author of one of the 19th century’s most enduring and influential works, the manuscripts of Mary Shelley are particularly valuable, and the support of the Friends of the National Libraries was critical to this purchase. The manuscript is a significant acquisition for the Bodleian Libraries, where it will sit alongside our Abinger Papers, an important collection of family papers of the Shelley, Godwin, and Wollstonecraft families, which includes the drafts for Mary Shelley’s seminal work, Frankenstein (the acquisition of which was also supported by the Friends of the National Libraries in 2004), as well as drafts for Shelley’s novella Mathilda (written 1819-1820, but published posthumously in 1959) and working notebooks containing drafts of short stories, part of the story of Samuel, and notes for the historical novel Valperga (published 1823).
Link to digital surrogate of Bodleian MS 19324
