The Story of Mary Shelley and Isabella Baxter

My caricature appeared in Vanity Fair about 10 years ago, in October 1899, in fact. It was accompanied by a short biographical note and two of the author's remarks, I recollect, still make me smile today. The first implied that I had been "doubly educated at St. Andrew's University and at Trinity, Cambridge", and the second stated, "he champions Women's Suffrage". The author did not know that my education began long before that, paid for indirectly by Mary Shelley, and directly by my grandmother, Isabella Booth, lifelong friends. A third remark in that particular biography states "how little he has been understood by the public", and this, I remember thinking at the time, was true about my grandmother's friendship with Mary Shelley and her relationship with my grandfather, David Booth.

My name is Dr James Stuart, and these pages tell the story about the special friendship of two wonderfully talented women, as related to me by my grandmother. This is the story of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley and Isabella Baxter Booth as I recollect it from my four young years living with my grandmother at 25, South Street, St. Andrews, and from our conversations many years following. A story much misunderstood by the public, kept quietly by my grandmother, without which I would not have become who I am...