Leighton's biography reflects the significance of setting to Mary Shelley's life.

Like most writers of the romantic era, Mary assigned almost a mystical power to the forces of nature. During the eight years Mary spent with poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, she and their entourage moved frequently from one scene of natural, awe-inspiring beauty to another. The biography begins at her birth in London on August 30, 1797. The account moves back and forth from England to the Continent—-primarily Switzerland and Italy—from 1814, when the sixteen-year-old Mary elopes with the eccentric young Shelley, until 1823, when, soon after Shelley's death, Mary and her only surviving child return to London.

One of the most significant settings in Shelley's Mary is the Villa Diodati on Lac Leman in Switzerland. Here Mary and Percy Shelley, along with Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont, are guests of the poet Lord Byron, who is attended by...