Mathildais Mary Shelley s haunting story of an incestuous and fatal love. The narrative traces the teenaged Mathilda s reunion with her unnamed father, and the development of their obsessive bond that culminates in suicide. Shelley s own father, William Godwin, was so disturbed after reading the manuscript that he refused to return it to her and it remained unpublished for over one hundred years. This near-forgotten and harrowing work encompasses the Romantic themes of the individual s growth, isolation, and the power of imagination. Shelley s violent and terrifying short stories share Mathilda s fixation with feminist concerns and Gothic conventions. The murderous plots and sinister settings of these later stories reveal Shelley s ongoing preoccupation with the supernatural, transformation, and untamed nature