Happy Birthday Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley!
Mary Shelley was born on August 30, 1797, the ultimate nepo baby to two famous thinkers, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. At just 18, she began writing the Gothic classic Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus (1818), inspired during a rainy summer in Switzerland spent with her future husband, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, and her step-sister Claire Clairmont.
Mary's life was full of melodrama and tragedy, lots of tragedy: She ran off to Europe with Percy while he was still married, survived miscarriages and the loss of three children, and was widowed at 24 when Percy drowned in a boating accident. She returned to England to raise their only surviving son, Percy Florence Shelley. What you may not know is that she kept writing and creating, producing novels like Valperga (1823), The Last Man (1826), Lodore (1835), and Falkner (1837), and a scandoulos novella titled Mathilda considered so racy it wasn't actually published until 1959. She also published non fiction works including travel writings: History of a Six Weeks' Tour (1817) written pre-Prometheus, book-ended by Rambles in Germany and Italy (1844) which was one of the last published, and the biographical articles for Dionysius Lardner's Cabinet, Cyclopaedia (1829–1846).
Mary died in 1851 at the age of 53, from an undiagnosed brain tumor. Today she's remembered not just as the author of Frankenstein, though that's quite the accomplishment, but as the mother of the Science Fiction genre itself.
Frankenstein has not only generated a shelf's worth of reinterpretations in print, but also movies, music, and the inspiration for tattoo enthusiasts. My top three would include Mel Brooks' iconic comedy film, Young Frankenstein, which still makes me giggle. Victor Lavalles' graphic novel interpretation, Destroyer, and The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White, a young adult novel focusing on Elizabeth Lavenza, a house guest to the family, and Victor Frankenstein as a young boy. What's your favorite?
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