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“Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind
as a steady purpose.”
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was only 18 years old
when she began her masterpiece, Frankenstein, or
The Modern Prometheus.
On a stormy night in 1816, Godwin, her lover, the
poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and her stepsister were visiting
the chalet of their friend, Lord Byron, on the shores of
Lake Geneva. The storm kept them from returning to their
own house, and they passed the night reading ghost
stories aloud. Afterwards, Byron challenged everyone to
write a ghost story.
Several nights later, Mary had a nightmare which she
recorded in her journal: “I saw the pale student of
unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put
together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched
out, then, on the working of some powerful engine, show
signs of life...he opens his eyes; behold the horrid thing
stands at his bedside.” She had her idea.
Now married to Shelley, Mary completed her novel
the following summer, and it was published in January
1818 to enormous success. Though she would continue to write
numerous novels, none would match the
influence of her first work. |
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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
(1797–1851) |
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