Mary's Monster Love, Madness and How Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein

Mary's Monster Love, Madness and How Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein Synopsis

Shortlisted for the UKLA Book Awards 2019

Mary's Monster is the compelling and beautifully illustrated story of Frankenstein's author Mary Shelley - the original rebel girl and an inspiration for everyone from teenage readers to adult. Aged 16 and pregnant, Mary runs away to Switzerland with the married poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Few people would have guessed that that fateful act would lead to a gothic novel still celebrated 200 years later. But cast out by her family and isolated by society, Mary Shelley created Frankenstein and his monster, forged in the fire of her troubled and tragic life. Part biography and part graphic novel, Mary's Monster is an engrossing take on one remarkable young woman and her monster.

Lita Judge on Mary Shelley: We’ve all heard the popular myth that Frankenstein was conceived spontaneously on a stormy night when the poet Lord Byron dared a small party of fellow expatriates to write ghost stories. But this myth strips away the identity of the brilliant young woman who wrote one of the most influential novels of the Romantic era and places credit for its inspiration in the hands of a man. The truth is much more interesting. Mary Shelley deserves our attention. She helped set in motion the feminist movement by defying the restrictions society imposed upon women… Mary was a pregnant teenage runaway, rejected by her family and spurned by society. She was reviled for daring to love a married man, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and later suffered more hardship due to his mental illness. But instead of being defeated, Mary transformed her suffering into empathy and strength.