Mary Shelley on writing and imagination

I'm reading Frankenstein with the healing angel, and sartorias suggested I read Mary Shelley's own foreword to the 1831 edition. It's fascinating! So gratifying to feel emotional kinship with someone who lived so long ago--which was what happened when I read about the imaginary tales she used to weave for herself as a child:

I did not make myself the heroine of my tales. Life appeared to me too common-place an affair as regarded myself. I could not figure to myself that romantic woes or wonder...