Valperga (novel)

Valperga: or, the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca is an 1823 historical novel by the Romantic novelist Mary Shelley, set amongst the wars of the Guelphs and Ghibellines (the latter of which she spelt "Ghibeline").

Mary Shelley's original title is now the subtitle; Valperga was selected by her father, William Godwin, who edited the work for publication between 1821 and February 1823.

Through the perspective of medieval history, Mary Shelley addresses a live issue in post-Napoleonic Europe: the right of autonomously governed communities to political liberty in the face of imperialistic encroachment.

[3] In the view of Valperga's recent editor Stuart Curran, the work represents a feminist version of Walter Scott's new and often masculine genre, historical novel.

[8] In 1824, a reviewer for Knight's Quarterly Review compared Valperga and Frankenstein and alleged that each novel was written by a different author: "[T]here is not the slightest trace of the same hand – instead of the rapidity and enthusiastic energy which hurries you forward in Frankenstein, everything is cold, crude, inconsecutive, and wearisome; – not one flash of imagination, not one spark of passion – opening it as I did, with eager expectation, it must indeed have been bad for me after toiling a week to send the book back without having finished the first volume.