Mary Shelley's second novel, "Valperga" was unsuccessful when first published. Her subject matter and unconventional approach to historical fiction may now delight 20th-century readers where it failed with those in the Romantic era.
Valperga, steeped in Mary Shelley's command of local Italian history and culture, offers the vivid pleasures of accomplished historical fiction, while at the same time representing in the clash between Castruccio and euthanasia a struggle between autocracy and liberal democracy that speaks directly to the contemporary political tensions of post-Napoleonic Europe.
Curran's edition is an excellent resource for scholarly study and an affordable alternative for the classroom....Curran's footnotes are useful, learned and tactful...and he provides a suggestive and illuminating chronology and selective bibliography.
