strange bedfellows: cervantes and mary wollstonecraft shelley

Miguel de Cervantes and Mary Shelley do seem, at first sight, two strange bedfellows. Notwithstanding the evident differences between the narrative of both authors, the English novelist showed a notable interest for the life and works of Miguel de Cervantes throughout her literary career. This article intends to offer a precise portrait of the Cervantean interests of the author of Frankenstein, tracing these through her personal correspondence, her narrative production, and finally, through her contribution to the realm of Cervantean studies: Shelley’s Life of Cervantes (1837), published in Dyonisius Lardner’s Cabinet Cyclopaedia.