 In 1827 , Mary Shelley was party to a scheme that enabled her friend Isabel Robinson and Isabel 's lover , Mary Diana Dods , who wrote under the name David Lyndsay , to embark on a life together in France as man and wife . With the help of Payne , whom she kept in the dark about the details , Mary Shelley obtained false passports for the couple . In 1828 , she fell ill with smallpox while visiting them in Paris . Weeks later she recovered , unscarred but without her youthful beauty . 
