Mary Shelley

popular name: Mary Shelley

date_of_death: February 1, 1851

age: 53

cause_of_death: Brain tumor

claim_to_fame: Writers and Poets

best_know_for: Mary Shelley (1797–1851) was an English novelist, best known for writing Frankenstein, one of the most influential works in the horror genre. She was born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, the daughter of the feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft and philosopher William Godwin. Her mother died only 11 days after her birth, leaving her with a strong intellectual legacy and a challenging childhood. In 1814, at the age of 16, Mary began a romantic relationship with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was already married. Despite societal taboos, they eloped to France in 1816, where they faced personal hardships, including the death of their first child. That same year, during a summer spent with Lord Byron at Lake Geneva, she conceived the idea for Frankenstein, which was published in 1818 when she was just 20. Percy Shelley died in 1822 in a drowning accident, leaving Mary a widow with a young son. She continued to write and publish, but struggled financially and emotionally. She wrote novels, short stories, travelogues, and biographies, though none gained the lasting fame of Frankenstein. She also edited and promoted Percy’s works. Mary Shelley died on February 1, 1851, from a brain tumor at the age of 53. She left behind a legacy as a pioneering figure in Gothic literature and a trailblazer for women in literature, particularly through her groundbreaking work with Frankenstein, which explored themes of creation, responsibility, and the human condition. She was laid to rest at St. Peter's Church in Bournemouth UK.

popular name: Tom Wolfe

date_of_death: May 14, 2018

age: 88

cause_of_death: Infection

claim_to_fame: Writers and Poets

best_know_for: Tom Wolfe was an innovative journalist and novelist whose technicolor, wildly punctuated prose brought to life the worlds of California surfers, car customizers, astronauts and Manhattan’s moneyed status-seekers in works like "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" (a highly experimental account of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters) “The Right Stuff” and “Bonfire of the Vanities.” But as an unabashed contrarian, he was almost as well known for his attire as his satire. He was instantly recognizable as he strolled down Madison Avenue — a tall, slender, blue-eyed, still boyish-looking man in his spotless three-piece vanilla bespoke suit, pinstriped silk shirt with a starched white high collar, bright handkerchief peeking from his breast pocket, watch on a fob, faux spats and white shoes. Once asked to describe his get-up, Mr. Wolfe replied brightly, “Neo-pretentious.”

popular name: Wallace Stevens

date_of_death: August 2, 1955

age: 75

cause_of_death: Stomach cancer

claim_to_fame: Writers and Poets

best_know_for: Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance company in Hartford, Connecticut. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his Collected Poems in 1955. Stevens's best-known poems include "The Auroras of Autumn", "Anecdote of the Jar", "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock", "The Emperor of Ice-Cream", "The Idea of Order at Key West", "Sunday Morning", "The Snow Man", and "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird". Though now considered one of the major American poets of the twentieth century, Stevens did not receive widespread recognition until the publication of The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens (Knopf, 1954), just a year before his death. His other major works include The Necessary Angel (Alfred A. Knopf, 1951), a collection of essays on poetry; Notes Towards a Supreme Fiction (The Cummington Press, 1942); The Man With the Blue Guitar (Alfred A. Knopf, 1937); and Ideas of Order (The Alcestis Press, 1935). His published book The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens (1954) earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.