 Soon after Percy Shelley 's death , Mary Shelley determined to write his biography . In a letter of 17 November 1822 , she announced : " I shall write his life — & thus occupy myself in the only manner from which I can derive consolation . " However , her father @-@ in @-@ law , Sir Timothy Shelley , effectively banned her from doing so . Mary began her fostering of Percy 's poetic reputation in 1824 with the publication of his Posthumous Poems . In 1839 , while she was working on the Lives , she prepared a new edition of his poetry , which became , in the words of literary scholar Susan J. Wolfson , " the <unk> event " in the history of her husband 's reputation . The following year , Mary Shelley edited a volume of her husband 's essays , letters , translations , and fragments , and throughout the 1830s , she introduced his poetry to a wider audience by publishing assorted works in the annual The Keepsake . 
