 The attempts of Mary Shelley 's son and daughter @-@ in @-@ law to " Victorianise " her memory by censoring biographical documents contributed to a perception of Mary Shelley as a more conventional , less reformist figure than her works suggest . Her own timid omissions from Percy Shelley 's works and her quiet avoidance of public controversy in her later years added to this impression . Commentary by Hogg , Trelawny , and other admirers of Percy Shelley also tended to downplay Mary Shelley 's radicalism . Trelawny 's Records of Shelley , Byron , and the Author ( 1878 ) praised Percy Shelley at the expense of Mary , questioning her intelligence and even her authorship of Frankenstein . Lady Shelley , Percy Florence 's wife , responded in part by presenting a severely edited collection of letters she had inherited , published privately as Shelley and Mary in 1882 . 
