MARY SHELLEY 
August 30, 1797 - February 1, 1851

“In a dream, I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion.”

~ Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was born in Somers Town, Great Britain.

~ Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the first feminists, died of puerperal fever ten days after giving birth. 

~ Mary's father was the writer and political journalist William Godwin, who became famous with his work, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice. 

~ Mary published her first poem at the age of ten. 

~ At the age of 16, she ran away to France and Switzerland with the poet Percy Shelley. They married in 1816. 

~ Their first child, a daughter, died in Venice, Italy. A few years later, they returned to England and Mary gave birth to a son, William.

~ The story of Frankenstein started in the summer of 1816. Mary took a challenge, set by Lord Byron, to write a ghost story. 

~ With her husband's encouragement, she completed the novel within a year. Many didn't believe a 19-year-old woman could write such a horror story.

~ When the book was published in 1818, it became a huge success.

~ In 1819 Mary suffered a nervous breakdown after the death of her son, William. He died of malaria at the age of 3. 

~ Three years later, husband Percy drowned in the Bay of Spezia.

~ Soon afterward, Mary returned to England with her only remaining child, Percy Florence. She devoted herself to his welfare and education and continued her career as a professional writer. 

~ None of Shelley's novels matched the power of her first legendary achievement. 

~ Shelley gave up writing long fiction when realism started to gain popularity, exemplified in the works of Charles Dickens. 

~ Instead she wrote short stories for popular periodicals, produced several volumes of Lives for Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia, and the first authoritative edition of Shelley's poems. She also attempted a biography on Shelley but abandoned the work.

~ Mary died in Chester Square, London, at the age of 54.

~ The story of Frankenstein's monster has inspired over 50 films. 

~ James Whale's version from 1931, starring Boris Karloff, is considered a classic. Mel Brook's parody Young Frankenstein received an Academy Award nomination. Kenneth's Branagh's 1994 film Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was the first one, however, that remained faithful to the book.