Mary Shelley

Lodore Mary Shelley

Lodore is a novel by Romantic novelist Mary Shelley, completed in 1833 and published in 1835. In Lodore, Shelley focused her theme of power and responsibility on the microcosm of the family.[2] The central story follows the fortunes of the wife and daughter of the title character, Lord Lodore, who is killed in a duel at the end of the first volume, leaving a trail of legal, financial, and familial obstacles for the two "heroines" to negotiate. Mary Shelley places female characters at the centre of the ensuing narratives: Lodore's daughter, Ethel, raised to be over-dependent on paternal control; his estranged wife, Cornelia, preoccupied with the norms and appearances of aristocratic society; and the intellectual and independent Fanny Derham, with whom both are contrasted .