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A professor recently unearthed previously unseen letters written by 鈥淔rankenstein鈥� author Mary Shelley.

Nora Crook, a professor at the UK鈥檚 Anglia Ruskin University, was conducting research on another topic when she stumbled on the website for the Essex Record Office. Documents stored there were each labeled 鈥淟etter from Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.鈥�

鈥淚 knew right away they had never been published before,鈥� Crook said of seeing the letters in an interview with the Guardian.

The 13 documents are the biggest group of never-before-released letters from Shelley to be found in decades and include seals from Shelley, which were not found on any previous letters written by her.

Shelley, best remembered for her famous 1818 novel 鈥淔rankenstein,鈥� is also the author of such works as 鈥淭he Last Man,鈥� 鈥淢athilda,鈥� and 鈥淔aulkner.鈥� She was married to the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.

The newly found letters were written between 1831 and 1849, after the death of Percy. In her letters, all of which were written to stockbroker Horace Smith and his daughter Eliza, Shelley speaks of raising her son, also named Percy.

鈥淧ercy is growing up a very fine young man & developing tastes & talents that would remind you of his father," Shelley writes. Of his time at Cambridge, she wrote, 鈥淗e is getting all that we could wish 鈥� he is getting very liberal 鈥� & has so much character & talent 鈥� though still shy 鈥� that I have every hope for his future happiness,鈥� though she adds, 鈥淚 am mortified he is not taller.鈥�

Shelley died of what was diagnosed as a brain tumor in 1851, and in some of the letters, she mentions feeling ill.

Crook noted that the letters are a window into Shelley's relationships with others, including her 鈥渃harming, wheedling side鈥� when she asked Smith for favors.

鈥淲hat is nice is that Mary Shelley's personality emerges,鈥� she told the Guardian. 鈥淲e see her as very loyal to the Smith family, very grateful and very attentive to Eliza 鈥� I don't think that friendship has ever been fully documented.鈥�