Writing and Publication
Mary Shelley wrote Midas in 1820. Miranda Seymour, a Mary Shelley biographer, speculates that she wrote Midas and Proserpine for two young girls she met and befriended, Laurette and Nerina Tighe. They were the daughters of friends of the Shelleys in Italy and their mother was a former pupil of Mary Shelley's mother, Mary Wollstonecraft. The same year, she wrote the children's story Maurice for Laurette.
Mary Shelley submitted the play for publication to The Browning Box, edited by Bryan Walter Procter, in 1824; it was rejected. In 1830, she submitted it to Rudolph Ackermann for publication in his children's magazine Forget-Me-Not; it was again rejected. In 1832, she sent it to Alaric Alexander Watts for consideration in his annual Literary Souvenir, however in her letter she suggested that the drama may be more appropriate for the juvenile publications edited by his wife, Priscilla Maden Watts. The drama was first published in 1922 by literary scholar A. Koszul.
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