I love a good horror story. Especially a Frankenstein story. My favourite adaptation of the classic is the wonderful Rocky Horror Picture Show, I mean who doesn’t love a man with a six pack dancing around and a man in suspenders dancing next to him? So today, let’s see how many Rocky Horror references I can manage to get into some good ol’ fashioned history! Let’s get a shift on and do the time warp again, while we talk about the author of Frankenstein; The Modern Prometheus.

There are so many Mary’s in the world and today we are going to be talking about the coolest, if I do say so myself. Mary Shelley has inspired hundreds of books, shows and movies about her creation Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus and she paved the way for not only modern horror, but for female horror writers.

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Mary Shelley was born exactly 200 years before me, on August 30^th 1797, in England’s capital, London. Her father was a philosopher called William Godwin and her mother was Mary Wollstonecraft, a women’s right activist, who unfortunately died just after Mary was born. Mary was a rebel at heart, and when she was 16, she eloped with the poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley (while Percy was still married, but it looks like that marriage had broken down).

Mary and Percy went to Europe for a while, and unfortunately in 1815 they lost their first child. In 1816, they were still in Europe and had arrived in Switzerland with Lord Byron, Jane Clairmont and John Polidori. 1816 is known most commonly, as the year without a summer. [During this time there was, in theory, the opposite of global warming. We were not facing an ice-age but the climate of the Earth was changing due to the eruption in April 1815 of Mount Tambora in Indonesia.] While they were all together with the rain coming down, Lord Byron challenged his companions to a horror-writing battle. It was here where Shelley started writing her most famous novel Frankenstein; A Modern Prometheus.

While she was writing Frankenstein, her half-sister, Fanny committed suicide and Percy’s wife, also committed suicide a few months later. The death of Percy’s wife, however, did give the two an opportunity to marry and at the age of 19, in 1816, Mary Wollstoncraft Godwin, became Mary Bysshe Shelley.

Our lasses story changes for the better, when in 1818 Frankenstein is finally published, even though we know today that it is written by Shelley, back then she decided to publish it anonymously. The book was so well received, that her and her husband moved to Italy. Her Marriage wasn’t a walk in the park however, and rumour has it that her husband continued his affairs with other women. We don’t know why, or with who, but it may have been a coping mechanism for losing two more children.

Percy died in 1822, and at the age of 24, Shelley was already a widow. Instead of staying in Italy, Mary moved back to London, but travelled extensively around Europe and continued writing novels, biographies and stories from her travels. In her later life she wrote The Last man, The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, A Romance and Rambles in Germany and Italy, in 1840, 1842 and 1843.

Unfortunately, Mary was diagnosed with brain cancer and passed away at 53, on February 1^st,1851. She is buried in St. Peter’s Church in Bournemouth and this is where the horror-romance comes into play, she is buried with the cremated remains of her husband’s heart.

So, what made people fall in love with the stories Shelley wrote? Well, the story of Frankenstein is [as the BBC says] “simultaneously the first science-fiction novel, a gothic horror, a tragic romance and a parable all sewn into one body”. It makes people question who was in the right, was it the compassionate monster turned bad? or was it Dr. Frankenstein, for pushing the limits of science?

At the time it was written, we were beginning to question religion more and more and a few years after the book, Darwin had written his new evolutionary theory. Science, the paranormal and morals make for a good book and Shelley knew this.

In modern culture we still reference the story of Victor Frankenstein, for example; Mass Effect and the Geth, Rocky Horror, Frankenweenie, Carry on Screaming, Thomas Edison’s short film based off the book and so so much more and we will always remember Shelley as the horror queen.

 I know its short, but I hope you all enjoyed finding out a little bit more about Mary Shelley. Thanks for reading, and keep being fantastic!