Matilda (Penguin Books)

Mathilda is narrated from the title character's death bed. She recounts her relationship with her father, who had an incestuous love for her, and his suicide by drowning. Her relationship with a gifted young poet was unable to prevent her emotional withdrawal after her father's death, or the lonely fact of her own dying. Shelley wrote Mathilda in an attempt to deal with the loss of her two infant children.