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The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck: A Romance is an 1830 historical novel
Historical fiction

Historical fiction is a sub-genre of fiction that often portrays fictional accounts or dramatization of historical figures or events. Writers of stories in this genre, while penning fiction, nominally attempt to capture the spirit, manners, and social conditions of the persons or time presented in the story, with due attention paid to period...
 by Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel literature, best known for her Gothic fiction Frankenstein ....
 about the life of Perkin Warbeck
Perkin Warbeck

Perkin Warbeck was a pretender to the England throne during the reign of King Henry VII of England. Traditional belief claims that he was an impostor, pretending to be Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York, the younger son of King Edward IV of England, but was in fact a Flemings born in Tournai around 1474....
.

In this novel, Mary Shelley returned to The Last Man's
The Last Man

The Last Man is an Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction science fiction novel by Mary Shelley, which was first published in 1826. The book tells of a future world that has been ravaged by a plague....
 message that an idealistic political system is impossible without an improvement in human nature. This historical novel
Historical novel

A historical novel is a novel in which the story is set among historical events, or more generally, in which the time of the action predates the lifetime of the author....
, influenced by those of Sir Walter Scott
Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet, was a prolific Scotland historical novelist and poet popular throughout Europe during his time.In some ways Scott was the first English-language author to have a truly international career in his lifetime, with many contemporary readers all over Europe, Australia, and North America....
, fictionalises the exploits of Perkin Warbeck
Perkin Warbeck

Perkin Warbeck was a pretender to the England throne during the reign of King Henry VII of England. Traditional belief claims that he was an impostor, pretending to be Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York, the younger son of King Edward IV of England, but was in fact a Flemings born in Tournai around 1474....
, a pretender to the throne of King Henry VII
Henry VII of England

Henry VII was the Kingdom of England and Lordship of Ireland from his usurpation of the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death on 21 April 1509, as the first monarch of the Tudor dynasty....
 who claimed to be Richard, Duke of York
Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York

Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York and 1st Duke of Norfolk was the sixth child and second son of Edward IV of England of England and Elizabeth Woodville....
, the second son of King Edward IV
Edward IV of England

Edward IV was Kingdom of England from 4 March 1461 until 2 October 1470, and again from 11 April 1471 until his death....
. Mary Shelley believed that Warbeck really was Richard and had escaped from the Tower of London
Tower of London

Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London , is a historic monument in central London, England, on the north bank of the River Thames....
.






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The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck: A Romance is an 1830 historical novel
Historical fiction

Historical fiction is a sub-genre of fiction that often portrays fictional accounts or dramatization of historical figures or events. Writers of stories in this genre, while penning fiction, nominally attempt to capture the spirit, manners, and social conditions of the persons or time presented in the story, with due attention paid to period...
 by Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel literature, best known for her Gothic fiction Frankenstein ....
 about the life of Perkin Warbeck
Perkin Warbeck

Perkin Warbeck was a pretender to the England throne during the reign of King Henry VII of England. Traditional belief claims that he was an impostor, pretending to be Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York, the younger son of King Edward IV of England, but was in fact a Flemings born in Tournai around 1474....
.

In this novel, Mary Shelley returned to The Last Man's
The Last Man

The Last Man is an Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction science fiction novel by Mary Shelley, which was first published in 1826. The book tells of a future world that has been ravaged by a plague....
 message that an idealistic political system is impossible without an improvement in human nature. This historical novel
Historical novel

A historical novel is a novel in which the story is set among historical events, or more generally, in which the time of the action predates the lifetime of the author....
, influenced by those of Sir Walter Scott
Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet, was a prolific Scotland historical novelist and poet popular throughout Europe during his time.In some ways Scott was the first English-language author to have a truly international career in his lifetime, with many contemporary readers all over Europe, Australia, and North America....
, fictionalises the exploits of Perkin Warbeck
Perkin Warbeck

Perkin Warbeck was a pretender to the England throne during the reign of King Henry VII of England. Traditional belief claims that he was an impostor, pretending to be Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York, the younger son of King Edward IV of England, but was in fact a Flemings born in Tournai around 1474....
, a pretender to the throne of King Henry VII
Henry VII of England

Henry VII was the Kingdom of England and Lordship of Ireland from his usurpation of the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death on 21 April 1509, as the first monarch of the Tudor dynasty....
 who claimed to be Richard, Duke of York
Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York

Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York and 1st Duke of Norfolk was the sixth child and second son of Edward IV of England of England and Elizabeth Woodville....
, the second son of King Edward IV
Edward IV of England

Edward IV was Kingdom of England from 4 March 1461 until 2 October 1470, and again from 11 April 1471 until his death....
. Mary Shelley believed that Warbeck really was Richard and had escaped from the Tower of London
Tower of London

Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London , is a historic monument in central London, England, on the north bank of the River Thames....
. She endows his character with elements of Percy Shelley, portraying him sympathetically as "an angelic essence, incapable of wound", who is led by his sensibility onto the political stage. She seems to have identified herself with Richard's wife, Lady Katherine Gordon, who survives after her husband's death by compromising with his political enemies. Lady Gordon stands for the values of friendship, domesticity and equality; through her, Mary Shelley offers a female alternative to the masculine power politics that destroy Richard as well as the typical historical narrative which only relates those events. Perkin Warbeck was generally well received; the Edinburgh Literary Journals critic, for example, said it bore "the stamp of a powerful mind". The novel is not now, however, regarded as one of Mary Shelley's most important.

Bibliography

  • Bennett, Betty T. "The Political Philosophy of Mary Shelley's Historical novels: Valperga and Perkin Warbeck". The Evidence of the Imagination. Eds. Donald H. Reiman, Michael C. Jaye, and Betty T. Bennett. New York: New York University Press, 1978.
  • Brewer, William D. "". Papers on Language and Literature 35.2 (Spring 1999): 187-205. Rpt. on bnet.com. Retrieved on 20 February 2008.
  • Bunnell, Charlene E. "All the World's a Stage": Dramatic Sensibility in Mary Shelley's Novels. New York: Routledge, 2002. ISBN 0415938635.
  • Garbin, Lidia. "Mary Shelley and Walter Scott: The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck and the Historical Novel". Mary Shelley's Fiction: From Frankenstein to Falkner. Eds. Michael Eberle-Sinatra and Nora Crook. New York: Macmillan; St. Martin's, 2000.
  • Hopkins, Lisa. "The Self and the Monstrous". Iconoclastic Departures: Mary Shelley after "Frankenstein": Essays in Honor of the Bicentenary of Mary Shelley's Birth. Eds. Syndy M. Conger, Frederick S. Frank, and Gregory O'Dea. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1997.
  • Lynch, Deidre. "Historical novelist". The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley. Ed. Esther Schor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. ISBN 0521007704.
  • Sites, Melissa. "Chivalry and Utopian Domesticity in Mary Shelley's The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck". European Romantic Review 16.5 (2005): 525-43.
  • Spark, Muriel
    Muriel Spark

    Dame Muriel Spark, Order of the British Empire was an award-winning Scotland novelist....
    .     Mary Shelley. London: Cardinal, 1987. ISBN 074740138X.
  • Wake, Ann M Frank. "Women in the Active Voice: Recovering Female History in Mary Shelley's Valperga and Perkin Warbeck". Iconoclastic Departures: Mary Shelley after "Frankenstein". Essays in Honor of the Bicentenary of Mary Shelley's Birth. Ed. Syndy M. Conger, Frederick S. Frank, and Gregory O'Dea. Madison, NJ: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1997. ISBN 0836836845.


External links

  • from the Internet Archive
    Internet Archive

    The Internet Archive is a nonprofit organization dedicated to building and maintaining a free and openly accessible online digital library, including an archive site of the World Wide Web....
  • from the Internet Archive
  • from Google Books