Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, known as Mary Shelley (London, 1797-1851), was a British storyteller, playwright, essayist, philosopher and biographer. Until the 1970s, Mary Shelley was primarily known for her efforts to publish the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley, and for her novel Frankenstein, which is still widely read and has inspired several film and theatre adaptations. Scholars have shown increasing interest in her literary output, particularly her novels, such as the historical novels Valperga (1823) and Perkin Warbeck (1830), the apocalyptic novel The Last Man (1826) and her last two novels, Lodore (1835) and Falkner (1837).