Post by Miss Dee on Feb 1, 2011 7:26:08 GMT -5
As Women in Horror month begins, it’s only fitting to recognize the mother of horror, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley. She is best known for her gothic horror/science fiction work “Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus”, written when she was just 19 years old.
The novel emerged from a storytelling competition with her husband, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron and Dr. John Polidori (who went on to pen “The Vampyre”) that came about after a night of reading a German book of ghost stories. Mary’s thought was to create a story "which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and awake thrilling horror--one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart." What was initially a short story developed into a novel, which was first published anonymously in 1818, and republished in 1832 identifying Mary Shelley as the author.
Shelley incorporated many of the tragedies of her life into her writing. “Frankenstein” is thought to have been influenced by Shelley’s grief over the death of her infant daughter, of whom she wrote in her journal, "Dream that my little baby came to life again--that it had only been cold & that we rubbed it before the fire & it lived." Later, a miscarriage and the drowning death of her husband Percy led to her lesser known dark, apocalyptic, science fiction novel “The Last Man”, a story of the 21st century world ravaged by plague.
Mary Shelley’s most famous work, which was initially dismissed by critics, is now considered a landmark work of gothic literature and science fiction, and inspired what is believed to be the first “monster movie” – Edison’s Frankenstein.
To learn more about Mary Shelley's life and works, here are a few sites to check out:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Shelley
www.litgothic.com/Authors/mshelley.html
www.literature.org/authors/shelley-mary/frankenstein/
The novel emerged from a storytelling competition with her husband, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron and Dr. John Polidori (who went on to pen “The Vampyre”) that came about after a night of reading a German book of ghost stories. Mary’s thought was to create a story "which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and awake thrilling horror--one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart." What was initially a short story developed into a novel, which was first published anonymously in 1818, and republished in 1832 identifying Mary Shelley as the author.
Shelley incorporated many of the tragedies of her life into her writing. “Frankenstein” is thought to have been influenced by Shelley’s grief over the death of her infant daughter, of whom she wrote in her journal, "Dream that my little baby came to life again--that it had only been cold & that we rubbed it before the fire & it lived." Later, a miscarriage and the drowning death of her husband Percy led to her lesser known dark, apocalyptic, science fiction novel “The Last Man”, a story of the 21st century world ravaged by plague.
Mary Shelley’s most famous work, which was initially dismissed by critics, is now considered a landmark work of gothic literature and science fiction, and inspired what is believed to be the first “monster movie” – Edison’s Frankenstein.
To learn more about Mary Shelley's life and works, here are a few sites to check out:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Shelley
www.litgothic.com/Authors/mshelley.html
www.literature.org/authors/shelley-mary/frankenstein/