Autumn Grieving, Leaves of Gold: a novel of the Shelleys with When Authors Become Characters: A Critical Reflection on the Writer-as-Character in Biographical Fiction

This creative writing thesis contributes to the discussion around contemporary biographical fiction. It questions the interrelation of historical fact and authorial fabrication, and ultimately argues that authors of biographical fictions have a duty to their subjects to present the past as accurately as possible, while it acknowledges certain difficulties of doing so. It considers the particular challenges presented by taking a famous author as the central character for a biographical novel, where the development of work and intellect should not be neglected for the facts of biography. Here the biographical novel can learn from the kunstlerroman, or artist-novel, and I propose a style of writing that pays tribute to the works of the writer-as-character. I then explain how I have specifically put this theory into practice in the novel which follows. Autumn Grieving, Leaves of Gold tells the story of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and the novelist Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. I diverge from many previous representations of the Shelleys by exploring the collaborative nature of this pairing, juxtaposing the facts of their biography with the development of their creative work to reveal a unique relationship that thrives on a collaborative impulse. Ultimately I put forward a representation of their relationship that is biased towards neither writer, and shows the Shelleys not as antagonistic forces upon each other, but as two writers engaged in a troubled, but ultimately positive, creative relationship. The novel is based upon scrupulous research, and the narrative voices I have created are informed by the Shelleys' works.