Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

She died at the age of 53.Īlthough Mary Shelley was a respected writer for many years, only Frankenstein and her journals are still widely read. Aside from her earnings from writing, she lived on a small stipend from her father-in-law, Lord Shelley, until her surviving son inherited his fortune and title in 1844. Mary was only 24 years old when Shelley drowned in a sailing accident she went on to edit two volumes of his works. Mary Shelley gave birth to five children, but only one lived to adulthood.

After Shelley’s wife committed suicide in December of 1816, the couple married but spent much of their time abroad, fleeing Shelley’s creditors. She clashed with her stepmother and was sent to Scotland to live with foster parents during her early teens, then eloped with the married poet Shelley when she was 17. The daughter of free-thinking philosopher William Godwin and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, she lost her mother days after her birth. Mary Shelley led a life nearly as tumultuous as the monster she created. The story explores philosophical themes and challenges Romantic ideals about the beauty and goodness of nature. The ideas for both Frankenstein, and Polidori's The Vampyre, which was published in 1819, were both born that day.Īlthough serving as the basis for the Western horror story and the inspiration for numerous movies in the 20th century, the book Frankenstein is much more than pop fiction. The group, trapped indoors by the inclement weather, passed the time telling and writing ghost stories. Mary Shelley created the story on a rainy afternoon in 1816 in Geneva, where she was staying with her husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, their friend Lord Byron and Lord Byron's physician, John Polidori. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), her first and most celebrated novel, contrasts a scientist of a good family and seemingly lofty. Cruelly rejected by its creator, it wanders, seeking companionship and becoming increasingly brutal as it fails to find a mate. The gentle, intellectually gifted creature is enormous and physically hideous. In Shelley’s tale, a scientist animates a creature constructed from dismembered corpses.

The book, by 20-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, is frequently called the world’s first science fiction novel. Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus is published.

Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley