“Behind a famous man there is always a woman.” Why him? This is how it happened historically. So five women’s destinies are closely intertwined with the life of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley - but what is known about them? Insignificant, even about his second wife Mary Shelley, creator of the famous novel “Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus.” And what can we say about the rest... His first wife Harriet and sister-in-law Fanny Imlay died very young, and his friend Claire Clairmont lived to an old age and left diaries. In this book, they will be heard in Russian for the first time and will tell, among other things, about the years she spent in Russia as a governess in the first quarter of the 19th century.

Five young Englishwomen dreamed of happiness - and so what? Let's give them the floor and let them tell it themselves. And they will help today’s women understand themselves better. (Nina Agisheva)