Aug 30, 2022
English novelist Mary Shelley is best-known for her Gothic novel 'Frankenstein'. Remembering author Mary Shelley on her birth anniversary today, here we share some freaky facts about her masterpiece 'Frankenstein'.
Wikipedia
First published in 1818, 'Frankenstein' has stood the test of time for over 200 years. The novel is widely considered to be one of the early examples of science fiction and horror fiction writing! Over the years, Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' has become a major part of our pop-culture-- so much so that the word Frankenstein is often used for something horrendous and unnatural.
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In 1816, Mary was on a holiday to Switzerland with her lover Percy Bysshe Shelley, their son, their friend Lord Byron and physician John Polidori. During the trip they were stuck inside due to heavy rain and to kill time they read ghost stories. For the sake of some fun, Lord Byron had proposed a competition for them to write the best ghost story and this ultimately inspired Mary Shelley to write 'Frankenstein'.
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Mary Shelley was born on August 30, 1797. This means that the author was around 18-years-old when she started writing 'Frankenstein' during her Switzerland trip in 1816. Two years later, the story was published as a book in 1818 when Mary Shelley was 20-years-old!
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Initially, Mary Shelley was unable to come up with a ghost story for the Lord Byron's competition. 'During one mid-June evening, the discussions turned to the nature of the principle of life. "Perhaps a corpse would be re-animated", Mary noted; "galvanism had given token of such things". It was after midnight before they retired, and unable to sleep, she became possessed by her imagination as she beheld the grim terrors of her "waking dream", her ghost story,' as per Wikipedia.
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After seeing a "waking dream", Mary Shelley started writing 'Frankenstein' as a short story. It was her lover Percy Shelley who encouraged her to expand it intoher first novel.
Pixabay
In 1818, 'Frankenstein' was first published annonymously. In fact, many people thought that the book was written by Percy Shelley. It was later republished under Mary Shelley's name. Percy had only helped Mary in editing the story, as per reports.
Wikipedia
In fact, the story is named after the scientist Victor Frankenstein who brought the dead to life. In fact, the monster is unnamed in the story and it is often called by the words "monster," "creature," or "it."
Pixabay
It's been over 200 years since 'Frankenstein' was published and now it has become a part of our pop-culture, but did you know that the story was initially slammed by many critics? For instance, John Crocker reviewed the book in Quarterly Review as, “What a tissue of horrible and disgusting absurdity this work presents,” when 'Frankenstein' was published.
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