 In the 1820s and 1830s , Mary Shelley frequently wrote short stories for gift books or annuals , including sixteen for The Keepsake , which was aimed at middle @-@ class women and bound in silk , with gilt @-@ edged pages . Mary Shelley 's work in this genre has been described as that of a " hack writer " and " wordy and pedestrian " . However , critic Charlotte Sussman points out that other leading writers of the day , such as the Romantic poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge , also took advantage of this profitable market . She explains that " the annuals were a major mode of literary production in the 1820s and 1830s " , with The Keepsake the most successful . 
