Thread by @vagina_museum

It's an often-repeated rumour that Mary Shelley lost her virginity on her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft's. grave. (Frankly cool) rumours about historical women's (frankly cool) sex lives have often little basis in fact and were spread by detractors. But this one might just be true.

Now, nobody can say conclusively that Mary Shelley had sex on her mum's grave, because no-one else was in the tomb where it happened. However, there's circumstantial evidence that suggests that yes, she probably did.

Just a quick note, throughout this thread we'll refer to our protagonist - Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, who later became Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - as simply "Mary" to avoid confusion with other people who have the same first names or surnames.

Circumstantial evidence item 1: Mary's mother's grave held great significance to Mary throughout her life. Mary Wollstonecraft died when Mary was 11 days old due to an infection probably caused by the attending physician at the birth having dirty hands.

From a very young age, Mary frequently visited her mother's grave at St Pancras churchyard. Some accounts suggest that the child learned to write her name by tracing the letters on the tomb. Despite being dead, Mary Wollstonecraft was a huge part of her daughter's life.

The young Mary would bring her mother's books to the grave and sit and devour the writings. She would go there when she was annoyed by her home life. The grave was Mary's safe space.

Circumstantial evidence item 2: Mary's upbringing was unconventional. Her late mother and her father, philosopher William Godwin, were both radical thinkers and anarchists. Both were highly critical of marriage as an institution and were proponents of "free love".

Mary lived with her father, her stepmother Mary Jane Clairmont, her half-sister Fanny Imlay (Mary Wollstonecraft's daughter) and two step-siblings, Charles and Claire Clairmont.

Charles and Claire had been born out of wedlock and had different fathers. Mary Jane had adopted the name Clairmont for herself and her children to pass herself off as a widow of a Swiss man.

Mary Jane Clairmont married William Godwin when she became pregnant with his baby. The same thing had happened when Godwin married Wollstonecraft - they'd only married once she was already pregnant.

Meanwhile, Fanny Imlay had also been born out of wedlock. Also, it's likely that she was conceived during a furtive quickie at a checkpoint in Paris, because Mary Wollstonecraft went hard.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary's future husband, was also a proponent of free love and politically radical. Oh, and at the time of the purported graveyard smash, he was married.

While social norms in the 19th century frowned upon extramarital and premarital sex, with Mary's upbringing and the people around her, as well as the influence of her late mother's writings, hooking up with a married man would not have been as shocking to her as to society.

Circumstantial evidence item 3: This is what the grave looked like. It wouldn't have been covered in moss back then. It's kind of bed-shaped and wouldn't be unfeasible to shag on.

Image credit: Historic England.

Circumstantial evidence item 4: Due to the significance of the churchyard, in their early courtship in 1814, Mary and Shelley would go walking there. They would, of course visit the grave.

Thanks to Shelley's correspondence, we even have a date for when the grave sex occurred (if it did): 26th June 1814. On that day, according to Shelley, something very emotionally significant for the couple happened.

Shelley is vague as to precisely *what* went down. He says that Mary "declared her love" for him at her mother's grave. He also declared 26th June his new "birthday" (his real birthday was in August).

A little over a month later, Mary eloped with the still-married Shelley to Europe. Claire Clairmont went along with them. She eventually had a child with the poet Byron.

It's impossible to say with any certainty that sex occurred on Mary Wollstonecraft's grave. It could be that what happened on 26th June was a very torrid exchange of loving sentiments, because both Mary and Shelley were very dramatic people.

It's worth noting, though, that it's very accepted among scholars and historians that the first time Mary had sex with Shelley was on her mother's grave. It isn't a fringe conspiracy theory - the evidence definitely points towards a graveyard smash.