This month we kick off the 2026 Winter Read, which is Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). There will be several book discussions, a foyer-themed book display, and a lineup of engaging programming here at The Community Library.
Featured in our foyer is an item from our Special Collections: Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound: With Adonais, The Cloud, Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, and an Exhortation(1888). This related work was originally published in 1820 on the heels of Frankenstein but received much less fanfare than Mary’s now classic Gothic novel.
Before meeting Mary, Percy had already married in 1811. He left his first wife in 1814, eloping to Europe with the young Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, whom he married in 1818. The now infamous literary couple shared a passion for reading, philosophy and ancient history – interests that fueled an intense intellectual, romantic, and artistic partnership.
Though Percy was not commercially or critically successful as a writer during his lifetime, he has been posthumously recognized as one of the “Big Six” poets of the Romantic era. His extensive knowledge of Ancient Greek literature deeply influenced his works and helped to informs Mary’s novel Frankenstein. Tragically, he drowned in a sailing accident in 1822 at the age of 29 before he was fully recognized for his literary genius.
Known as a “closet drama,” Prometheus Unbound was written during the couple’s marriage but published after Frankenstein, written in 1816 and published in 1818. Ironically, Frankenstein would go on to be performed in a variety of stage adaptations throughout the 1820s and 1830s. In all, some 97 dramatic performances have been attributed to the work. Percy’s work was not adapted to the stage until the 1880s.
Prometheus Unbound explores the tribulations of the Greek deity Prometheus, who had rebelled against Zeus, the Father of the Gods. Prometheus creates humanity from clay and steals fire to foster human civilization. Ultimately, his fate for this transgression is eternal suffering until Hercules frees him. The work draws comparison between the flaws of an all-powerful ruler versus a self-governed human race.
The introduction to this 1888 volume is by British professor of literature Henry Morley, who reflects Percy’s troubled youth, remarking that:
“He had a strong memory which helped him in his work and gave him leisure to read all the romances he could get out of the Brentford circulating library or in cheap editions and he liked those best that were most highly priced.”
Morley also includes a warning about the risky nature of Percy’s life choices. When he drowned in 1822, he left Mary Shelley a widow at age 22. She went on to strive to keep his works in publication, though his father kept the rights to much of his poetry.
This item is on exhibit in the Library’s Foyer through early March.
The full text of Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound from Cassell’s National Library can be viewed online here.
