Frankenstein
The novel Valperga was sold on. Its title page calls the author simply the author of Frankenstein.
Read our takeValperga
Mary Shelley
Valperga
by Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley's second novel: a real fourteenth-century tyrant of Lucca, and the two invented women who love him and refuse to be ruled by him.
- 1823
- 424
- Melancholy
- Atmospheric
- Elegiac
- political
- lyrical
- dark
About Mary Shelley
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeValperga is Mary Shelley's historical novel about Castruccio Castracani, a real soldier who made himself ruler of Lucca in the early 1300s. Italy is split between two parties. The Guelphs side with the Pope and with Florence, and the Ghibellines side with the Emperor. Castruccio, a Ghibelline exile, grows from a charming boy into a cruel and brilliant prince. Two invented women stand against him. Euthanasia, Countess of Valperga, loves him but loves the freedom of Florence more. Beatrice, a young prophetess of Ferrara, believes heaven has given her to him. The novel was published in London in three volumes on 19 February 1823, as by the author of Frankenstein.
The story, in more detail
Mary Shelley began the book in Pisa in March 1820, under the title Castruccio, Prince of Lucca. She had first thought of the story in Marlow. She finished it at the end of August 1821 and spent the autumn copying it out.[1] Her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, offered it to the publisher Charles Ollier. He called the hero a little Napoleon, with a dukedom instead of an empire for his theatre. He said the chief interest of the book was Euthanasia.[2]
No deal came of it. In January 1822 the Shelleys sent the manuscript to her father, the philosopher William Godwin, and told him to keep whatever it earned. Godwin changed the title to Valperga, the name of Euthanasia's castle, and held the book back until 1823.[1] On 14 February 1823 he wrote to his daughter, by then a widow, that the novel was printed. He admitted he had taken great liberties with it. He also told her that Beatrice was the jewel of the book.[3]
Mary Shelley's preface names her sources. She says the Castruccio known in England came from Machiavelli's romance about him. She sends readers instead to Sismondi's history of the Italian republics, and says she also read Tegrino's life of Castruccio and Giovanni Villani's chronicle of Florence.[4] The historical Castruccio lived from 1281 to 1328. Euthanasia and Beatrice are the author's own inventions.[5]
Paris appears only briefly. After a campaign in Flanders for King Philip le Bel of France, the young Castruccio is invited to the Parisian court. He spends some weeks of the winter there, admired by the ladies and noticed by the French nobles, before going back to the army.[4]
The full plot
In 1301 the Guelphs drive Castruccio's Ghibelline family out of Lucca, when he is eleven. As a boy in Florence he meets Euthanasia dei Adimari, whose father reads the writers of ancient Rome with her and teaches her to love liberty. Castruccio's father dies, and the boy spends a year with Francis Guinigi, a soldier who has taken up farming.[4]
Castruccio goes to England, then fights in Flanders for the King of France under the Italian general Alberto Scoto. He winters at the court in Paris. On the road back into Italy he falls in with Benedetto Pepi, a scheming politician from Cremona. He then joins the court of the Emperor Henry at Milan. When Henry dies, the lord of Pisa restores him to Lucca. He visits Euthanasia at her castle of Valperga, in the hills near Lucca, and they agree to marry.[4]
In Ferrara Castruccio meets Beatrice, the adopted daughter of the city's bishop. The people revere her as a prophetess. She walks blindfold and barefoot over red-hot ploughshares, comes through unhurt, and is hailed as a saint. She believes heaven means her for Castruccio, and they become lovers. Then he tells her he must go back to Lucca, and leaves her.[6]
In Lucca, Castruccio drives three hundred families into exile. Euthanasia tells him that as the enemy of Florence he will never be her husband. He becomes Prince of Lucca and makes war on Florence. When Euthanasia will not give up Valperga, his soldiers take the castle and escort her to Lucca. He comes to her there and asks again. She refuses him, and forgives him.[6]
Years later Beatrice is thrown into the prison of the Inquisition at Lucca. At Euthanasia's request Castruccio has her freed. Euthanasia nurses her and hears her story. The bishop had told Beatrice that the ordeal was rigged to save her, and she had lost her faith in her visions. Afterwards a cruel and powerful man held her for three years in a house near Rome. A witch in the forest gives her a drug, and she dies in Euthanasia's care.[7]
How it ends — spoilers ahead
Castruccio tortures Florentine prisoners to force ransoms from their families. Euthanasia joins a plot to overthrow him, on condition that his life is spared. A priest named Tripalda betrays the conspiracy. Castruccio orders all the plotters put to death and keeps Euthanasia's fate for himself.
At night he comes to her cell and sends her away by ship to Sicily. A storm breaks the same evening. The ship is never seen again, and the next day a white silk handkerchief is found on the beach with some golden hairs in its knot. The closing chapter follows Castruccio to the height of his power in Rome. He dies of fever in Lucca on 3 September 1328.
Themes and analysis
A little Napoleon
Mary Shelley wrote Valperga a few years after Napoleon's fall, and readers saw him in it straight away. Percy Bysshe Shelley described Castruccio to his publisher as a little Napoleon who brought to his small dukedom all the passions and errors of the original.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine saw it too, and did not like it. Its March 1823 review said the reviewer was sick of the perpetual drumming at poor Buonaparte in novels. Even so, the review recommended Valperga as, on the whole, a clever novel. The British Association for Romantic Studies attributes the unsigned review to John Gibson Lockhart.
The novel shows Castruccio's cruelty growing step by step. He starts as a bright, likeable boy. He learns war under Alberto Scoto, whose camp the novel calls an evil school. By the third volume he is torturing prisoners for ransom and ordering a whole conspiracy put to death. The book never pretends he is stupid or a coward.
Euthanasia: love or Florence
Euthanasia's own account of her girlhood explains her politics. Her father read the writers of ancient Rome with her. Then, at a court in Lombardy, she heard a minstrel sing cantos of Dante's Divine Comedy, and she dates her love of liberty from that day. She came to connect wisdom with freedom. She says Florence was free, Dante was a Florentine, and only a free man could have written what she heard.
Her choice is the centre of the novel. She loves Castruccio from childhood and never stops. But she will not marry a man at war with Florence, and she tells him so. After his soldiers take her castle, she tells him she would rather woo the lion in his den than become the bride of a conqueror.
Florence was free, and Dante was a Florentine; none but a freeman could have poured forth the poetry and eloquence to which I listened
Beatrice, the jewel of the book
William Godwin called Beatrice the jewel of the book. Percy Bysshe Shelley went further. He told Ollier he knew nothing in Walter Scott's novels that came near her.
Beatrice believes her feelings come straight from God. When she falls in love with Castruccio, she takes the feeling as one more revelation. His departure breaks her faith as well as her heart. Her story is also the novel's darkest material: the Inquisition, an ordeal by fire, years held captive, and a witch's drug.
A forgotten novel, brought back
Valperga was not reprinted from the Romantic period until the 1970s. Full modern editions arrived in the 1990s: Nora Crook's for Pickering, Tilottama Rajan's for Broadview and Stuart Curran's for Oxford. Michael Rossington edited it for Oxford World's Classics in 2000.
Quotes from Valperga
Florence was free, and Dante was a Florentine; none but a freeman could have poured forth the poetry and eloquence to which I listened
I had rather woo the lion in his den to be my husband, than become the bride of a conqueror.
As the enemy of Florence I will never be yours
Why we recommend it
The Mary Shelley novel after Frankenstein
Her second novel, published five years after the first. The title page sold it simply as by the author of Frankenstein.
Two heroines stronger than the hero
Euthanasia rules her own castle and picks Florence over the man she loves. Beatrice is a prophetess whom Godwin called the jewel of the book.
A tyrant readers took for Napoleon
Percy Bysshe Shelley called Castruccio a little Napoleon, and Blackwood's complained about exactly that. The rise of a charming boy into a cruel prince still reads as a study of power.
What this book explores
The people in its pages
Castruccio Castracani
A Ghibelline exile from Lucca who becomes a great general and then the city's ruthless prince.
Euthanasia dei Adimari
Countess of Valperga, a Guelph brought up in Florence, who loves Castruccio and loves Florence's freedom more.
Beatrice
The adopted daughter of the Bishop of Ferrara, revered as a prophetess, who believes heaven has given her to Castruccio.
Benedetto Pepi
An old Ghibelline politician of Cremona, vain, clever and without scruple, whom Castruccio meets on his way back into Italy.
Bindo
An albino whom Euthanasia keeps about her at Valperga. He reads the stars, and arms himself to defend her castle.
Tripalda
A scheming priest who joins the conspiracy against Castruccio and then betrays it.
Bring it to book club
- Euthanasia loves Castruccio all her life and still chooses Florence over him. Is she right?
- Castruccio starts as a likeable boy. At what point, if any, does he become a villain?
- Beatrice believes her feelings come from God. What does the novel think of that belief?
- Percy Bysshe Shelley called Castruccio a little Napoleon. Does the comparison help or hurt the book?
Timeline
1820
In March, in Pisa, Mary Shelley begins a novel she calls Castruccio, Prince of Lucca.
1821
She finishes the novel at the end of August and copies it out through early December. Percy Bysshe Shelley offers it to the publisher Charles Ollier.
1822
In January the Shelleys send the manuscript to William Godwin, who is to keep the money it earns. He renames it Valperga.
1823
G. and W. B. Whittaker publish Valperga in London in three volumes on 19 February. Five days earlier Godwin wrote that Beatrice was the jewel of the book.
1823
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine reviews it in March and recommends it as, on the whole, a clever novel.
1998
Broadview Press publishes Tilottama Rajan's edition, one of the first full modern editions.
2000
Oxford World's Classics publishes Michael Rossington's edition.
Book editions
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- G. and W. B. Whittaker, London
- 1823
- Paperback
- Broadview Press
- 1998
- 9781551111445
- Paperback
- Oxford University Press
- 2000
- 9780192832894
Reader reviews
Readers may also like
The Last Man
Mary Shelley's next novel after Valperga, published three years later. Both follow a gifted friend's ambition through war and loss.
Read our take
Mathilda
Written in Italy in 1819, months before Mary Shelley began Valperga. Its narrator is another young woman whose life is wrecked by a man's love.
Read our take
Queen Margot
Alexandre Dumas's novel of faction war, with a princess caught between her own loyalties and the killing around her.
Read our takeValperga: frequently asked questions
What is Valperga about?
Valperga follows Castruccio Castracani, a real soldier who became ruler of Lucca in the early 1300s. The novel also follows the two women who love him. Euthanasia, Countess of Valperga, chooses the freedom of Florence over him. Beatrice, a young prophetess, is ruined by her love for him.
Was Castruccio Castracani a real person?
Yes. He lived from 1281 to 1328 and ruled Lucca. Mary Shelley's preface names her sources, including Sismondi's history of the Italian republics and Giovanni Villani's chronicle. Euthanasia and Beatrice are her own inventions.
When was Valperga published?
On 19 February 1823, in three volumes, by G. and W. B. Whittaker in London. Mary Shelley began it in March 1820 and finished it in August 1821. Her father, William Godwin, arranged the publication.
Why is it called Valperga?
Valperga is Euthanasia's castle in the hills near Lucca. Mary Shelley called the novel Castruccio, Prince of Lucca. Her father changed the title before it was published.
Does Valperga have anything to do with Paris?
Only briefly. After fighting in Flanders for King Philip of France, the young Castruccio spends some weeks of a winter at the court in Paris. The rest of the novel is set in Italy, with short stays in England and Flanders.
Is Castruccio meant to be Napoleon?
Not literally, but readers made the link at once. Percy Bysshe Shelley called him a little Napoleon. The Blackwood's review of March 1823 complained of the perpetual drumming at poor Buonaparte.
Where can I read Valperga?
The 1823 text is free from Project Gutenberg, as ebooks 63337, 63338 and 63339. The Oxford World's Classics paperback, edited by Michael Rossington, is ISBN 9780192832894.
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References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document Valperga, its publication, and its place in literary history.
2↑The Life and Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Volume 1
BiographyRichard Bentley and Son, London; Project Gutenberg, eBook #37955, 1889Used forPrints Percy Bysshe Shelley's letter offering the novel to Ollier. Marshall dates it 25 September 1822, after Percy Shelley's death, so the year is a misprint.
3↑The Life and Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Volume 2
BiographyRichard Bentley and Son, London; Project Gutenberg, eBook #37956, 1889Used forGodwin's letter saying the novel is printed, that he took great liberties with it, and that Beatrice is the jewel of the book.
5↑Valperga (Oxford World's Classics), ed. Michael Rossington — catalogue page with publisher's synopsis
WebsiteAbeBooksUsed forThe Oxford World's Classics catalogue entry and publisher's synopsis, for the binding and for Castruccio's dates.
7↑Valperga: or, The Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca, Volume 3 (1823), full text
NovelProject Gutenberg, eBook #63339, 1823Used forThe primary text of volume three, for Beatrice's death, the conspiracy, the ending and the Conclusion. Not every chapter of the novel was read in full.
8Review of Valperga, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, vol. 13, no. 74 (March 1823)
PeriodicalWilliam Blackwood, Edinburgh, 1823Used forThe March 1823 review, read in the Internet Archive scan of the issue.
9On This Day in 1823 – Mary Shelley's Valperga was first published
WebsiteBritish Association for Romantic Studies (BARS) Blog, 2023Used forThe British Association for Romantic Studies' bicentenary post, for the reviewer's name and the modern editions.
10Valperga — Open Library edition records (work OL450114W)
WebsiteOpen Library, Internet ArchiveUsed forLibrary catalogue records, for the Broadview and Oxford ISBNs.
11Valperga
NovelMary Shelley, 1823Used forThe primary text represented by this page, used for descriptions of the work’s contents and for any quoted passages shown here.
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Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
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