ABSTRACT
Mary Shelley’s final published work, the epistolary travel narrative Rambles in Germany and Italy, in 1840, 1842, and 1843, she details her search for health and her hopes for Italy's political well-being. In her introduction to Rambles, Mary Shelley does not reference her own losses, but focuses her attention instead on supporting the Risorgimento, the movement for Italian nationalism. However, the way this political discussion both reveals and conceals desire reflects the structure of a trauma response. Mary Shelley's representation of her suffering enacts what Cathy Caruth describes as the sense of the unknown at the core of the known in trauma. She describes remembered landscapes that she associates with her traumatic losses in Italy, but the private psychological movement behind these memories remains invisible. Mary Shelley's account of her 1842 German spa treatment occurs between narratives depicting her two emotionally charged trips to Italy, yet this experience serves as useful introduction to the relationships among invisibility, trauma, and healing.
