Shelley’s short story was published in The Keepsake, an annual illustrated literary collection mainly addressing a middle-class female readership. Using a mise-en-abyme technique, the story begins when Harry Valency, an Englishman, tells his adventure during the Greek Revolution to a group of four English people stranded in a snowstorm. Harry, wounded after a Turkish ambush, is saved by the dying Constantine who narrates the tragic story of his sister Euphrasia, an idealization of Greece combining philhellenism with feminism.
Mary Shelley (1838), ‘Euphrasia: A Tale of Greece’, The Keepsake.
Featured Image: Taken from Shelley’s story, 1839 edition.
