William Shelley
William Shelley, 24 January 1816-2 June 1819, elder son of Mary
and Percy Bysshe Shelley, born out
of wedlock and named after William
Godwin. Many critics have commented on the oddity of Mary Shelley's
apparent modeling of Victor Frankenstein's youngest brother William, who is
strangled by the Creature, on her own
child. Both Mary and Shelley doted on the boy and were grief-stricken over
his sudden illness and death in Rome, probably from a cholera or typhoid
infection. A second son, Percy Florence
Shelley, was born six months later and survived to inherit the
baronetcy of Shelley's father.
