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Reef, Catherine. Mary Shelley: The Strange True Tale Of Frankenstein's Creator. Clarion Books, 2018

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Mary Shelley was born on August 30th

She was born in London, England

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mary-Wollstonecraft-Shelley

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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, (born August 30, 1797, London, England-died February 1, 1851, London), English Romantic novelist best known as the author of Frankenstein.

The only daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, she met the young poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1812 and eloped with him to France in July 1814. The couple were married in 1816, after Shelley's first wife had committed suicide. After her husband's death in 1822, she returned to England and devoted herself to publicizing Shelley's writings and to educating their only surviving child, Percy Florence Shelley. She published her late husband's Posthumous Poems (1824); she also edited his Poetical Works (1839), with long and invaluable notes, and his prose works. Her Journal is a rich source of Shelley biography, and her letters are an indispensable adjunct.

Mary Shelley's best-known book is Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818, revised 1831), a text that is part Gothic novel and part philosophical novel; it is also often considered an early example of science fiction. It narrates the dreadful consequences that arise after a scientist has artificially created a human being. (The man-made monster in this novel inspired a similar creature in numerous American horror films.) She wrote several other novels, including Valperga (1823), The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck (1830), Lodore (1835), and Falkner (1837); The Last Man (1826), an account of the future destruction of the human race by a plague, is often ranked as her best work. Her travel book History of a Six Weeks' Tour (1817) recounts the continental tour she and Shelley took in 1814 following their elopement and then recounts their summer near Geneva in 1816.

Late 20th-century publications of her casual writings include The Journals of Mary Shelley, 1814-1844 (1987), edited by Paula R. Feldman and Diana Scott-Kilvert, and Selected Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1995), edited by Betty T. Bennett.

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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley | Biography, Books, Frankenstein, Parents, & Facts

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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English Romantic novelist who is best known as the author of Frankenstein, a text that is part Gothic novel and part philosophical novel and is also often considered an early example of science fiction. Learn more about her life and works in this article.

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Mary Shelley's mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, died on September 10th, 1797.

Mary Wollstonecraft died 11 days after her Mary Shelley was born.

Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the most well known writers of her time as an early feminist. She hoped to change people's views on women, allowing women to gain improved educations so women weren't forced to depend on men.

"Mary had no memory of her mother, who had died on Spetmber 10, 1797, weleven days after Mary was born." (3)

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Mary Shelley's father, William Godwin, was also a well known writer. He published a very controversial novel acknowledging the fact that certain institutions didn't allow people to speak their mind or think in new and different ways. Mainly marriage, schools, churches, and governments.

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On June 7, 1812, Mary Shelley went on a voyage to Scotland for 6 days. The ship she boarded was names the Osnaburgh.

"On June 7, 1812, Mr. Godwin, Fanny, and Jane escorted Mary to the dock where she boarded the Osnaburgh..." (16)

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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley is best known for her novel never learned to like her stepmother. Her stepmother was jealous of the relationship that Mary had with her father and tried to keep them apart, also trying to keep Mary away from her books. Nonetheless, Mary was not discouraged, at age 14 she published her first poem titled Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus. Shelley was born on August 30th, 1797 in London. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, a famed feminist sadly died of puerperal fever 10 days after giving birth to her daughter. Her father, William Godwin, was a philosopher and political journalist. Mary educated herself throughout much of her childhood through her fathers extensive library and she spent a lot of time in her father's intellectual circle, which included Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth.
Her father was remarried in 1801 to Mary Jane Clairmont, who brought her own two children with her. Shelley Mounseer Nongtongpaw.
In 1812 Mary was sent to live in Scotland with William Baxter, an acquaintance of her Father. During this time Mary became very close to Baxter's two daughters, Christina and Isabel. This experience was able to give her the family life that she did not have in London. At the age of 16 she returned to London, where she was introduced to one of her father's political followers the young Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mary began a romantic relationship with Percy despite the fact that he was still married to his first wife. The couple ran away to France to elope which caused tensions between Mary and her father.

In 1816, the couple famously spent a summer with Lord Byron, John William Polidori, and Jane Clairmont near Geneva, Switzerland. This is where Mary conceived the idea for her novel Later on in the year of 1816, Mary's half - sister Fanny committed suicide and so did Percy's wife a short time later. Mary and Percy got married in December of 1816, and she published a travelogue of their escape to Europe titled In 1818, At the age of 24, Mary Shelley became a widow after Percy passed away. During this time she wrote several more novels including, Sadly, Mary Shelley died of brain cancer on February 1, 1851, at the age of 53. Yet roughly a century after her passing, on her novels,
Percy and Mary Shelley traveled Europe together for a time and after that they struggled financially. They also experienced the tragic loss of their first child in 1815 when Mary delivered a baby girl who only lived for a few days. Frankenstein after the group read a book of ghost stories on a rainy day and Lord Byron suggested that they all write their own horror stories. History of a Six Weeks' Tour (1817). Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus debuted as a new novel from an anonymous author. Many thought that Percy Shelley had written the book since he penned its introduction, but nonetheless it turned out to be a huge success. Valperga and Mathilde, was finally released in the 1950's. However, Mary Shelley today is still mostly known for her classic tale of Frankenstein. The Last Man. She also spent a lot of her time promoting Percy's poetry and making sure he would be remembered in literary history.

Mary Shelley Biography - Picture of Percy Shelley - Picture of Frankenstein book cover - http://www.biography.com/people/mary-shelley-9481497#synopsis https://myintelligentlife.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/percy-bysshe-shelleys-on-life/ http://www.litquotes.com/blog/2016/03/frankenstein-by-mary-wollstonecraft-shelley/
Frankenstein: The Story Itself
Frankenstein: Literary Influences and Reception

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Mary ShelleyMary Wollstonecraft Godwin Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley is best known for her novel Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus. Shelley was born o...

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Mary Shelley met Percy Bysshe when she was 16. They fall in love, but Percy hadn't divorced his wife.

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Mary Shelley's Haunted Life
By Caroline Macon Fleischer

This article was originally written for Lookingglass Theatre Company's production of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born in 1797 to two exceptional writers. Her father, William Godwin, was an acclaimed journalist and political philosopher. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was the author of the radical book, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, among other celebrated works.

Mary's mother developed an infection during childbirth. She survived the birth, but tragically died ten days after. The death of Mary's mother left a profound impact on her life-as she grew up, she was frequently compared to her in beauty and personality.

When Mary was four years old, her father remarried a woman who was not fond of Mary. The woman, Jane Clairmont, moved in with her two children. When she gave birth to a third child in 1803, Mary's alienation became amplified. She felt removed from her family and from her father's affection.

When Mary grew into a teenager-and began to act and look more like her mother-Jane became fed up and sent her away for two years to Scotland. In her later writing, Mary described Scotland as a "blank and dreary" time of her childhood, but the bleak and boring days allowed her to begin creating fictional tales. In spite of her own lack of excitement, she started to explore other identities in her imagination.

In 1812, Mary returned to England to visit her father. During the trip, she met Percy Bysshe Shelley, a young poet her father had befriended and mentored. During this stay in England, Percy was accompanied by his wife, Harriet Westbrook. Despite Percy's marriage, he and Mary had an obvious interest in one another.

When Mary returned to England in 1814 and saw Percy again, they swiftly fell in love. They ran away together to travel around Europe, leaving Harriet, Percy's wife, heartbroken. Mary's father adamantly disapproved of their union, and it wounded his life-long, tumultuous relationship with Mary.

Mary and Percy believed in the concept of free-love, which in the Romantic era was specifically anti-marriage. Followers of free-love believed that anyone should be allowed to love anyone, even outside legal and societal constraints. Although idealistically on board, this put some strains on their relationship. For instance, it was suspected that Mary's stepsister Claire Clairmont and Percy had a child together.

Besides the calamity that surrounded their relationship, Mary and Percy felt passionately for one another. Percy was a Romantic poet who encouraged Mary to write.

In 1815, Mary gave birth to her first daughter prematurely. The girl only lived two weeks before she died. Stricken with grief, the Shelleys moved to Bishopsgate, but Mary soon became pregnant again. In 1816, she gave birth to a son, William, who she named after her father.

1816 was called "The Year Without a Summer." The eruption of Mount Tambora caused a global catastrophe. Heavy smoke and volcanic ash disrupted the stratosphere, blocking sunlight. The loss of sun caused cold temperatures, darkness, and a food shortage around the world.

During this gloomy season, the Shelleys traveled for a vacation in Lake Geneva. There, they stayed with their friends-Lord Byron, Dr. John Polidori, and Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont. (These five make up the characters of our play). During their trip to Geneva, the group resided in the Villa Diodati, and stayed up late discussing scary German ghost stories. At Lord Byron's suggestion, the friends competed in a competition of original ghost stories.

In the end, Mary's was the most hauntingly successful, and grew into the tale we now know as Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. But as Mary set off to continue working on the novel, she received the news that her half-sister, Fanny, had committed suicide. Then, just one month later, the Shelleys heard that Harriet, Percy's former wife, drowned herself at age 21.

Notwithstanding her grief, Mary worked on the book for two more years. Frankenstein was published on New Year's Day in 1818. Though it should have been a happy time, death continued to follow Mary. In September, her youngest daughter died at one year old, and the following year, her son William died as well.

All told, Mary had five children with only one surviving-Percy Florence, named after her beloved and the city he was born. Despite his love for Percy Florence, Percy Shelley experienced chronic nervousness and panic attacks due to all the death in his life. During a dark spell in 1822, he traveled out on a sailboat and drowned to death in a storm. After his death, Mary tried to continue to write, but cycles of depression and sorrow kept her from it.

From 1827-1840, Mary was able to write prolifically again. She worked as both a writer and editor. She published several original works in those years, and edited the writings of Percy Shelley and her father. In the 1840s, Percy Florence married a woman who Mary adored, so she was surrounded by loved ones as she aged.

In 1851, Mary died of a brain tumor. After she died, her family cleared the contents of her writing desk. In it, they found locks of her dead children's hair, as well as a parcel of Percy's cremated heart, wrapped in one of his last poems, Adonais.

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Mary Shelley's Haunted Life By Caroline Macon Fleischer This article was originally written for Lookingglass Theatre Company's production of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born in 1797 to two exceptional writers. Her father, William Godwin, was an acclaimed journalist and political philosopher.

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Mary Shelley became an incredible debator from the amount of reading that she did. Her and her friend, Jefferson Hogg, spent time arguing to improve their minds and distract Mary from her loss.

"The knowledge Mary gained from reading made her a strong debator." (42)

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Where did Frankenstein come from?

Portrait of Mary Shelley (1797-1851) by Richard Rothwell. Mary Shelly prophesized in Frankenstein [1] how a human-made machine might learn. She details the process in great detail over several chapters as the monster, in its own voice, provides "an account of the progress of [its own] intellect."

The learning process detailed in Frankenstein-starting with basic proprioception and culminating in social interaction-combines realistic elements of human learning with plausible predictions of how intelligent beings might deduce rules of behaviour from observing humans.

Was Shelly an extraordinary visionary with a unique sense of observation? Did she have a keen sense of developmental psychology? Was she correct about how intelligent beings may come to learn about the world and how to interact in it?

Yes. Yes. And, most assuredly, yes [2, 3, 4]. She also made deep connecting references with previous literature. Indeed like Rousseau's Emile [2], Shelly's monster learned from its environment and then its society.

Émile ou de l'éducation, 1762.

The story of Frankenstein incrementally unfolds, and tells a story of becoming aware, then learning to interact with an environment, and eventually other intelligent beings. The progress culminates with the monster obtaining a self-awareness and ability to reason about what other intelligent beings are reasoning about.

The account of intellectual development opens with descriptions of gaining senses of sight, feeling, hearing, and smell, all at once. It is not with disentangled clarity that these sense arrive, but rather they arrive entangled together as a convoluted stream of information.

...it was, indeed, a long time before I learned to distinguish between the operations of my various senses.

The first thing that the monster learns to do is blink to relieve nerve pressure. From this first blink, the next narrative points detail a curriculum of intelligence prescient for reflection given research in artificial general intelligence.

Following blinking come several important functions of intelligence:

visual light stimulation

awareness of one's own embodiment

locomotion as an embodied being

collision detection and avoidance

maneuvering around obstacles

At the same time as these embodied abilities are being described, the creature describes basic compulsions, or necessities, which demand attention.

...the heat wearing me as I walked, I sought a place where I could receive shade...,
until I was tormented by hunger and thirst", "and then lying down, was overcome by sleep.

The phrasing that Shelly uses to describe the means by which the monster acts are framed as external forces of hunger and thirst and exhaustion exerting upon the monster. Then the framing changes. The monster gains agency and starts to embody its own experience. This dualism is a critical moment when the separation between mind and body occurs. The body can overcome the mind, and the mind can do the same to the body.

I felt cold ... and half frightened... finding myself so desolate
The monster then gazes upon the moon with a kind of wonder, I fixed my eyes on that [bright moon] with pleasure.

The monster drinks from a stream, and uses the foliage of the trees for shade from the hot sun. It is delighted by the sounds of the birds, and "sometimes, [tried] to imitate the pleasant songs." This imitation is followed by the monster finding, discovering, its own internal desires and then wishing to express its sensations in its own ways. It realized that it was not the song that it wanted to imitate, but what the process represented.

How might Frankenstein classify such an organism? Then again, how might you? Next, the monster starts to distinguish the "insect from the herb", notably finding contrast between various forms of animated life. The monster is categorizing, a pre-linguistic form of concept learning by grouping like with like and not with unlike.

The monster uses a variety of tools and accessories to satiate its demands of comfort, including "clothes", "a huge cloak", "a cup", and "a fire left by some wandering beggars." Again the mind-body separation emphasizes the apparent disconnect between the brain and the body.

It starts to reason about cause and effect. After the monster delights in the warmth provided from an ambient fire, it puts its hands directly into live embers, then reflects: "how strange, I thought, that the same cause should produce such opposite effects."

The monster starts to collect resources to sustain the comforts of a fire: The monster protects the embers of the live fire overnight. This foresight can be seen as some of its first predictive reasoning. It is in some way afraid of not having embers, of not having fire. Namely, it wanted to be able to become warm in the future, and thus adapted its environment to be able to take such actions at a distant point in time. From there, it even uses the fire to roast some of its food. "... the berries were spoiled by this operation, and the nuts and roots much improved." It is learning through trial and error, through positive and negative reinforcement.

From this experience, it reasons to find an environment where "the few wants [it] experiences would be more easily satisfied."

The monster then starts to engage in prosocial activities. It seeks out other intelligent and similar beings, before retreating "from the barbarity of man." The monster observes other intelligent beings from a safe distance. It experiences emotional empathy while watching an old man play music for another human.

He raised her and smiled with such kindness and affection that I felt sensations of a peculiar and overpowering nature.

It is fascinated by the diversity of the other intelligent beings it is observing:

Nothing could exceed in beauty the contrast between these two excellent creatures.

It longed to join them, the urge for pro-social behaviour resonating strongly. When the monster realizes that the food it is stealing from the family is one of the causes of their uneasiness it abstains, not wanting to inflict undue hardship on the family. The monster is generous, and helps the family procure firewood: "... during the night I often took his tools, the use of which I quickly discovered, and brought home [firewood] sufficient for the consumption of several days."

The monster then discovers that the family possesses "a method of communicating experience and feelings to one another by articulate sounds." This communicative ability, the monster remarks, is a "godlike science" with the ability to produce effects "in the minds... of the hearers". The grounding of several words came next, 'fire', 'milk, 'bread', as well as the perception that some words did not have connection to visible objects. The monster also gained an ability to produce several ungrounded words, such as 'good', and 'unhappy'.

Perhaps at this stage in [its] development [the monster] ... can master objects but not feelings, causes but not concepts. - David H. Guston

There is a great connection formed between the monster and the family that it observed. It sympathized with their joy and sadness.

From language learning, the monster then started to observe the family reading to each other. It longed to be able to understand, "... I ardently longed to comprehend [the sounds of reading aloud]; but how was that possible when I did not even understand the sounds for which they stood as signs."

What connects symbols and behaviour? For a deeper diver from myself and collegues, see Symbolic Behaviour in Artificial Intelligence (2021)

During this time of increased capacity the monster also notes that it is terrified when viewing itself in a reflection. This is a moment of great importance: when the monster can see itself and realize it is themself, they are also seeing others and realizing they are them. It is also realizing that it is not them.

The monster finds comfort in routine, and uniform scheduled days of activity. With this comfort came curiosity: "My thoughts now became more active, and I longed to discover the motives and feelings of these lovely creatures". The monster forms an imagination of a thousand ways that a first social interaction might go. It makes predictions about the mental state that the interaction might imbue in the members of the family. It is reasoning about how the humans might reason about it. The monster is even able to understand that the perception of the world is different from human to human; it understands that the old man is blind and unable to visually perceive its abhorrence.

Longing to Communicate

The monster longed to learn sufficient language to communicate effectively with these other social beings. When the monster observes a lady learning the language of the villagers it is observing, it imitates the learning process "[making] use of the same instructions to the same end". After two months the monster "began to comprehend most of the words uttered" by the family it lived near.

The Ruins of Empires by Constantin-François Volney

It not only learned the spoken word, but also "the science of letters". It learns natural history from the texts of Volney's The Ruins of Empires, and systems of human society such as the "division of property" and of wealth and property. It also learned of the "birth and growth of children", "how the mind of youth expanded and gained knowledge", and the "various relationships which bind one human being to another in mutual bonds."

The monster knew that it was not "of the same nature as man". It was self-aware of its deficiencies in comparison to the humans it observed, as well as actions afforded to it, what it could do, that humans could not. The monster was experiencing feelings of being an imposter, of being not normal. These egotistical reflections caused agony and sorrow. The monster eloquently leaps towards a meta-physical understanding exclaiming: "what a strange nature is knowledge!"

The monster learns to understand death as the antithesis of life, but also as the only means to overcome the sensation of pain. These are quite great ideas that the monster is struggling with, and it learns to dig into the written words to understand humanity at an even deeper level. Namely, the monster finds the books Paradise Lost, a volume of Plutarc's Lives, and the Sorrows of Werter. These books "produced in [it] an infinity of new images and feelings".

Paradise Lost. A poem written in ten books by John Milton. Through these texts the monster learns to appreciate death, and wonder. It finds itself in the texts. It sympathized with the characters it read about. It struggles with its own identity and very being. The monster was able to transfer the learning of symbolic written language to other text as well. It deciphers several papers from the journal of Doctor Frankenstein, and understands them to describe its own origin story.

Shelly takes the readers through the construction of intelligence, one step at a time, from environment to society. That said, there are some open questions for the next post... What are the limitations of the monster's intellect portrayed by Shelly? What do the abilities and limitations of the monster's learning tell us about machine learning? What is the process by which the monster becomes self-aware? What is the process by which the monster separates the environment from other intelligent beings? What if the monster made its own creation? What would it do differently knowing how it feels to be one from this experience?

1. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley; Diane Johnson. Frankenstein. Bantam Dell. (2003, 1981, 1818).

2. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Émile, or treatise on education. Vol. 20. Appleton, 1899.

3. Viliusis, Rachel. "The Emergence of Psychology and the Creation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: An Examination of Innovation and Narration." (2017).

4. Holcombe, Alex O., Eric L. Altschuler, and Harriet J. Over. "A developmental theory of synaesthesia, with long historical roots: A comment on Hochel & Milan (2008)." Cognitive neuropsychology 26.2 (2009): 227-229.

Additional context and inspiration from: Guston, D. H., Ed Finn, and J. S. Robert. " Frankenstein. Mary Shelley. Annotated for scientists, engineers, and creators of all kinds." (2017).

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Mary Shelley publishes "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus". She published this book anonymously. This book is an instant success.

https://www.biography.com/authors-writers/mary-shelley

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Mary and Percy spend a lot of time together, which is cherished and full of memories.

"...they took long walks that ended at a pond where they sailed paper boats." (38)

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Sir Timothy attempts was extemely angry with Percy Bysshe. He attempted to bribe Percy with money to come back to England.

"Sir Timothy offered to raise Percy's allowance by five hundred pounds, and lend him another two thousand, if Percy returned to England."

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Percy Bysshe sends Mary Shelley a letter paying for her travels to his estate in an attempt to keep her safe. A few other people would be living with them because Percy was kind enough to allow them to stay in his home.

"Wasting no time, Shelley sent Mary a letter and fifty pounds to pay for her travel" (86).

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Marry Shelley's two friends, Clara and William, have both passed away. Mary was so sad it worried Percy and another of her friend's, Claire.

"...Clara had died, and now so had Willam" (96).

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People believed Mary Shelley was lying about the strong pains she was having but when she started bleeding immensely they finally believed her. Mary Shelley ended up having a miscarriage.

"But Mary was having a miscarriage, and she began to bleed uncontrollably..." (111-112)

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Dr. Michael Delahoyde
Washington State University

Mary Shelley:
Frankenstein

Texts:

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. NY: Signet, 2000.

Mary Shelley:

Mary Shelley's mother died within two weeks of Mary's birth in 1797. In 1814 she eloped with the married Percy Shelley. She had a miscarriage, a dream of the dead baby come to life after being rubbed before a fire. She then gave birth to a son in 1816, shortly before the famous night of ghost stories prompted by Lord Byron. Frankenstein was published in 1818.

The Frame:

Walton's adventure literalizes Frankenstein's journey into the unknown and parallels the isolation such overreaching entails. Walton's letters to his married sister, Mrs. Saville, home back in England gives a very indirect glimpse of the domestic world ambiguously cherished in the novel. The narrative framing -- like boxes inside boxes ultimately -- filters the fever-dream-like story through more rational voices. But whose story is this ultimately? It can be called a decentered text.
"my father's dying injunction had forbidden my uncle to allow me to embark in a seafaring life."

"I begin to love him as a brother, and his constant and deep grief fills me with sympathy and compassion. He must have been a noble creature in his better days, being even now in wreck so attractive and amiable."

Family:

"my mother had said playfully, 'I have a pretty present for my Victor....'"
Interestingly, in the 1818 version of this story, Mary Shelley cast Elizabeth as Victor's first cousin. In the 1830s version, Elizabeth is born of a completely separate family. What are the implications of these changes in the novel from 1818 to the 1830s?

Victor seems to have an idyllic childhood and ideal relationships with his parents. So why does he go so wrong? Why isn't Victor Frankenstein perfectly bland? Later, what happens to all mothers? They seem to exist only to be eradicated and leave orphans. Meanwhile, all fathers seem to be withering.

Creation:

"After having formed this determination and having spent some months in successfully collecting and arranging my materials, I began."
"None but those who have experienced them can conceive of the enticements of science.... After so much time spent in painful labour, to arrive at once at the summit of my desires was the most gratifying consummation of my toils."

"'Compose yourself,' said Clerval."

"I felt also the sentiments of joy and affection revive my bosom; my gloom disappeared, and in a short time I became cheerful as before I was attacked by the fatal passion."

"trembling with passion, [I] tore to pieces the thing on which I was engaged. The wretch saw me...."

Doppelgangers:

A "doppelganger" (literally, double-goer) is an alter ego, a projected other self, a shadow or dark side -- often an outward manifestation of a repressed side of the self. It's a psychological/literary phenomenon. What evidence do we have that this is a term appropriate for Victor and the creature? What happens to Victor right after the moment of creation?
Both say, "I bore a hell within me" (84, 130).

"my own spirit let loose from the grave" (74).

"I almost began to think I was the monster he said I was" (83).

"I learned from your papers that you were my father."

"I shall be with you on your wedding-night."

Commentary:

Shelley herself called her novel "hideous progeny" or "offspring" (xii).
Early Gothics all share a major technical problem.... They cannot be efficiently told; they cannot be properly framed. Especially at the end, they are narrative flops. As Coleridge said almost two centuries ago, horror stories are "fever dreams," and like nightmares they don't fit symmetrically. Structurally, they are unaesthetic, anti-artistic, preserving only the unities of the subconscious. (Twitchell 41)

Works Cited

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. NY: Signet, 2000.

Monster Index

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Dr. Michael Delahoyde Washington State University Mary Shelley: Frankenstein Texts: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. NY: Signet, 2000. Mary Shelley: Mary Shelley's mother died within two weeks of Mary's birth in 1797. In 1814 she eloped with the married Percy Shelley. She had a miscarriage, a dream of the dead baby come to life after being rubbed before a fire.

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Mary Shelley published "Valperga" which she didn't receive any profit from because she gave all her profit to her father even though she was struggling with money as well. She thought that giving the money to her father was the right thing to do.

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Mary Shelley believed that Percy Bysshe's poetry should achieve more popularity and she wanted people to appreciate his work as much as she did. She ended up publishing his works in a book.

"She sifted through the pages that remained and assembled a collection of long poems, shorter ones, and unfinished fragmants.

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Mary Shelley's "Anonymous Author" Now Known

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Mary Shelley's "Anonymous Author" Now Known

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Mary Shelley's identity of her published books are now known instead of being anonymous. The books continue to still sell well. Although there are many people that are sexist toward Mary Shelley.

"'The Last Man' claimed to be by the anonymous author of 'Frankenstein', but readers knew this was Mary Shelley" (136).

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Mary Shelley helps a teenage girl that had given birth to a child. She understand the difficulties of being a single mother and through her own experiences, and knowing her friends she makes a promise to support the teenage girl.

"...Mary vowed to help Isabel" (137).

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Marry Shelley moved from London to some place else because she was tired of all the people. She wanted to live somewhere where she could relax without so much noise.

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Mary Shelley got smallpocks which caused her to be very insecure. Her beautiful skin turned red and spotty. Many individuals feared this sickness in the 1800s because it killed a fourth of the victims.

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Mary Shelley was secure and living a happy life that had no worries. She didn't have to struggle with money any longer and her son and daughter-in-law took good care of her.