28th December 1814: Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin visits Garnerin's 'Phantasmagoria' in London

By Wednesday 28th December 1814, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was back in London, after returning from her elopement to the continent with Percy Shelley in September. Aged 17, she was 5 months pregnant and, at that point, estranged from her father, and lived with Shelley, as yet unmarried.

Her journals for the 28th December record an outing that night that seems likely to have later have played a part in influencing her first novel, which she would begin 18 months later:

[Shelley & I]—go to Garnerin's lecture—on Electricity—the gasses—& the Phantasmagoria

'Phantasmagoria' was the name given to an exhibition of optical illusions via a magic lantern, a relatively new but very popular form of entertainment. It had also already come to mean a series of real or imaginary images experienced in a dream, or fever-like state. It was also the name of a French collection of German ghost stories, translated by Jean-Baptiste Benoît Eyriès, which Byron would read to Mary, Shelley and others 18 months later at the villa Diodati.

Garnerin was André-Jacques Garnerin, a pioneering French balloonist & parachutist, with a now lesser-know sideline in this kind of show. A front-page advert in the classified section of The Times of the preceding day announced his show:

THEATRE of GRAND PHILOSOPHICAL RECREATIONS.—The Professor GARNERIN has the honour to inform the Nobility and Gentry, that in consequence of his engagements at Covent-garden, his Theatre will be open this week, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and he hopes to merit the approbation of his numerous visitors, by his new experiments on the Electricity, Gas, Aerostation, Fantasmagoria, &c. The performance begins at 7 o'clock. Spring-gardens room.

An advert for the show in the 19th January 1815 edition of the Times promised, in addition to the above, that Garnerin would "make the experiment of Johanna Southcott's Resurrection." Southcott was still featuring in April 1815, with an advert in the Morning Post of 17th April mentioning her and detailing 'Experiments of Electricity' featuring "the Electric Dance, Delineation of a Thunderbolt, Fire produced from Water, and Imitations of the Aurora Borealis."

28th July 1814: Percy Bysshe Shelley & Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin elope to Europe

After a developing and all-enveloping love affair that had lasted from the day they met in May, Percy Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin decided to elope to Europe in the early hours of Thursday 28th July 1814, accompanied by Mary's half-sister, Claire Clairmont. The entry below is from Shelley's journal: 

 
The night preceding this morning, all being decided - I ordered a chaise to be ready by 4 o'clock. I watched until the lightning & the stars became pale. A length it was 4. I believed it not possible that we should succeed: still there appeared to lurk some danger even in certainty. I went. I saw her. She came to me. Yet one quarter of an hour remained. Still some arrangements must be made, & she left me for a short time. How dreadful did this time appear. It seemed that we trifled with life & hope. A few minutes past she was in my arms - we were safe. we were on our road to Dover.

Mary was ill as we travelled. Yet in that illness what pleasure & security did we not share! The heat made her faint it was necessary at every stage that she should repose. I was divided between anxiety for her health & terror lest our pursuers should arrive. I reproached myself with not allowing her sufficient time to rest, with concieving any evil so great that the slightest portion of her comfort might be sacrifized to avoid it.

At Dartford we took four horses that we might outstrip pursuit. We arrived at Dove[r] before 4 o'clock. Some time was necessarily exp[ended] in consideration, in dinner - in bargaining with sailors & customs house officers. At length we engaged a small boat to convey us to Calais. It was ready by six o clock.

The evening was most beautiful. The sand slowly receded. we felt secure. There was little wind - the sails flapped in the flagging breeze. The moon rose, the night came on, & with the night a slow heavy swell and a fresher breeze which soon became so violent as to toss the boat very much .... Mary was much affected by the sea. She could scarcely move. She lay in my arms thro the night, the little strength which remained in my own exhausted frame was all expended in keeping her head in rest on my bosom. The wind was violent & contrary. If we could not reach Calais the sailors proposed making for Boulogne. They promised only two hours sail from the shore, yet hour after hour past & we were still far distant when the moon sunk in the red & stormy horizon, & the fast flashing lightning became pale in the breaking day.

We were proceeding slowly against the wind when suddenly a thunder squall struck the sail & the waves rushed into the boat. Even the sailors perceived that our situation was perilous, they succeeded [in] reefing the sail,―the wind had now changed & [w]e drove before a wind that came in violent [g]usts directly to Calais.

Mary did not know our danger. She was resting on between my knees that were unable to support her. She did not speak or look. But I felt that she was there. I had time in that moment to reflect & even to reason upon death. It was a thing of discomfort & of disappointment than [?terror] to me. We could never be separated, but in death we might not know & feel our union as now. I hope ― but my hopes are not unmixed with fear for what will befall this inestimable spirit when we appear to die.

The morning broke, the lightning died away, the violence of the wind abated. We arrived at Calais whilst Mary still slept. We drove upon the sands. Suddenly the broad sun rose over France.

26th June 1814: Percy Shelley & Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin meet in St Pancras Churchyard

In the evening of Sunday 26th June 1814, the poet Percy Shelley met his lover, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin at the grave of Mary's mother, Mary Wollstonecraft in St Pancras churchyard, London. Although this location had become a regular meeting place, it was most likely this night that Mary declared her love for Shelley, and according to their journal entries, that they first made love, despite being chaperoned by Mary's half-sister, Claire Clairmont.

5th May 1814: Percy Bysshe Shelley meets Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin in London

On Thursday 5th May 1814, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley visited his mentor, the political philosopher William Godwin at the latter's home and bookshop at 41 Skinner Street, Islington. Shelley had been in contact with Godwin for some time, and was in fact his benefactor.

That day was to be the second time he had met Godwin's daughter, Mary, the child from Godwin's marriage to the feminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft. On the previous occasion, in November 1811, Mary was 14 and Shelley 19, though he was already married at that time.

Their meeting was to be the dawn of a relationship that would transform both of their lives, and lead to the publication of one of the greatest works of science fiction, and of English literature.