Mary Shelley's Death

“Frankenstein” author Mary Shelley, died on February 1, 1851, at the young age of 53.  Ms. Shelley at one point felt compelled to defend her authorship in a letter to Sir Walter Scott.  Scott reviewed “Frankenstein” for Blackwood’s magazine.  Scott clearly liked the novel.  The last paragraph of that review is below:

‘…Upon the whole, the work impresses us with a high idea of the author's original genius and happy power of expression. We shall be delighted to hear that he has aspired to the paullo majorica; and, in the meantime, congratulate our readers upon a novel which excites new reflections and untried sources of emotion. If Gray's definition of Paradise, to lie on a couch, namely, and read new novels, come any thing near truth, no small praise is due to him, who, like the author of Frankenstein, has enlarged the sphere of that fascinating enjoyment.’