Mary Shelley was born in London on August 30th 1797. She never knew her famous feminist mother, Mary Wollstonecraft. Mary Wollstonecraft died from a fever only 10 days after giving birth to Mary Shelley.

Mary never received any formal education. She learned to read from Louisa Jones, her father, and his wife, and followed her father's advice that the proper way to study was to read two or three books at the same time. Luckily, she had access to her father's excellent library, and to the political, philosophical, scientific, or literary conversations that he conducted with famous visitors such as William Wordsworth, Charles Lamb, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. One example is when, on 24 August 1806, Mary and Jane hid under the parlor sofa to hear Coleridge recite The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a poem which later haunted Frankenstein.

Much of Mary's young teen years resembles a soap opera. In 1813, at age sixteen, Mary eloped to France with the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, for which Mary's father temporarily disowned her.  In 1816, Shelley's first wife, Harriet, whom he had abandoned for Mary, drowned herself in the Serpentine River.  Mary and Percy married days after Harriet's body, pregnant with Shelley's unborn child, was discovered. The Shelleys moved to the shores of Lake Geneva, Switzerland, and there formed a literary circle that included George Gordon, Lord Byron. The group regularly held all-night discourses on scientific and supernatural topics.

After one such discussion, in which Byron suggested a friendly "ghost story" competition, Mary had a dream that became the inspiration for Frankenstein her first novel. Published anonymously in 1818, Frankenstein was an instant success. Mary was 21.

Mary's young life was filled with tragedy and loss. Of the four children Mary had with Percy Shelley, only one lived beyond the age of three: their son Percy Florence. In June 1821 (at age 24), Mary nearly died from the miscarriage of a fifth child. A month later, Shelley drowned in a boating accident in the Gulf of Spezia, at the age of twenty-nine.

Mary Shelley devoted the rest of her life to writing novels, (over 30 were published), editing Shelley's poetry for posthumous publication, and traveling with her son.. By 1851, the year of her death, she had established a reputation as a prominent author independent of her famous husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley. She died on February 1, 1851, at the age of 53 and was buried at Bournemouth, England, with her parents.
(To discover more about her other books look up Mary Shelly on your Research Programs Page on this website.)

A scientist, rejecting outmoded theories and superstitions, turns to research, and patches together a new but monstrous human being from corpses. Into this new being he manages to instill life. This unholy experiment goes wrong. The scientist is negligent. The monster runs amok, bringing death and destruction on scientist and family, and almost everyone else, before retribution comes. This story, a type of scientific fairytale, has amused or troubled the world since the novel was first published, in 1818.
That is the barest outline of the plot. Read the book. You won't be sorry.

Nearly two hundred years later, the famous monster is a permanent part of modern culture and is recognized instantly in photos (See left) and drawings(See right). The story of Mary Shelley's creation still inspires stage, film, video, and television productions. From the first dramatic version of Frankenstein on the London stage in the 1820's until Hollywood most recent attempts to exploit the myth (46 titles at last count), the spirit of Mary Shelley's original has greatly changed.

The literary classic about parental abandonment of human creations and the curse to be “different”, has became a narrowly focused story of a mad scientist and a grotesque monster.

As early as the 1820s, the name “Frankenstein” started to be used interchangeably for the Monster and the Monster’s maker. After the success of Dracula (1931) with director Tod Browning and featuring new star Bela Lugosi, Carl Laemmle Jr., Universal Studios production chief, offered Whale his choice of some 30 Universal properties. Whale picked Frankenstein. Casting the Monster was a challenge. In the developing screenplay he would remain mute, but he would be a complex person. They needed an actor of subtlety and range. and they tested an unknown but experienced character actor named William Henry Pratt, who went by the stage name Boris Karloff. The key to Whale and Karloff’s shared vision is that the Monster is a oversized newborn child, his lurching, loose-armed walk that of a toddler struggling to keep his balance. Frankenstein was a run-away success, bigger than Dracula. Karloff became a superstar, and horror films grew from an occasional oddity to a full-fledged film genre, particularly at Universal.

The original Creature was pretty thoroughly destroyed in that first film; subsequently the focus of the Hammer series (1960s) was on Victor Frankenstein, who was played by Peter Cushing. The films trace Frankenstein's ongoing experiments into re-animation and brain transplantation. Victor Frankenstein became a murderous and increasingly monstrous criminal. The Hammer Frankensteins differ from the Universals in their lush color, their convincing 19th century costumes, and their fascination with body parts.

Then in the 1970s, Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder’s masterpiece, Young Frankenstein (1974), was made as a loving parody of the first three Universal Frankensteins.

Finally, Kenneth Branagh’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994) is beautifully photographed, and probably comes the closest of any film version to the story in the novel (though still not that close). But while Branagh has "many of the story’s lyrics, he doesn’t have the tune". The result feels phoney, with the exception of Robert De Niro’s part as the Monster. It seems that until Kenneth Branagh's version, all Frankenstein movies were focused on the unthinkable thrill of creating life out of dead body parts. Focusing on the "horror" of the creation of the Monster, and its violent aftermath, has masked the deeper and most essential meanings of the book.

Although Mary Shelley suggests that he was born without human memory or character (tabula rasa), the Creature educated himself through observation, trial and error and through reading classical literature. Instead, the Monster, played most notably by Boris Korloff, appears as intellectually stupid, mute and physically awkward. Portrayals of the mad scientist with his grotesque zombie creation, however entertaining, prevent us from identifiying with the passion of Dr. Frankenstein and the struggle for humanity of the Creature.

Because of Mary's popular novel and some 46 movies made about "The monster", the story has become a modern ____ 3 ____.

Today the spirit of Mary Shelley's original story has greatly changed.

But it is that basic theme of Man ____ 4 _____ God's work which marks it out as the first true work of science fiction and it is considered a ____ 5 _____ of writing.

The name of the ____ 6 ____ Victor Frankenstein, is used today to describe an ____ 7 ____use of science and technology and everyone knows that a Frankenstein Movie is a certain type of horror film.

Mary never received any ____ 9 ____ education. She learned to read her father, and his wife, and followed her father's advice that the proper way to study was to read two or three books at the same time. Luckily, she had access to her father's excellent ____ 10 ____ , and to the political, philosophical, scientific, or literary conversations that he conducted with famous visitors

In 1813, at age sixteen, Mary ____ 11 ____ to France with the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, for which Mary's father temporarily disowned her.

In 1816, the Shelleys moved to the shores of Lake Geneva, Switzerland. While they lived there, they formed a ____ 12 ____ circle that included George Gordon, Lord Byron.  

The group regularly held all-night discussions on scientific and ____ 13 ____ topics.

After one of these conversations, Byron suggested a friendly "ghost story" ____ 14 ____. Mary had a dream that became the ____ 15 ____ for Frankenstein her first novel.

Thus the story was born that is the basis of Frankenstein movies which focused on the ____ 16 ____ thrill of creating life out of dead body parts.

Mary's young life was filled with ____ 17 ____and loss. Of the four children Mary had with Percy Shelley, only one lived beyond the age of three. In July 1821 Shelley drowned in a boating accident in the Gulf of Spezia, at the age of twenty-nine.