Tuesday, February 17, 2009

The genesis of Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein"

From Arthur Clutton-Brock & Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Shelley, the Man and the Poet" (1999), now online at Internet Archive: "It was the result of a conversation about ghosts and horrors after which Shelley suddenly ran shrieking out of the room. He said that he was looking at Mary and thought of a woman he had heard of who had ejres instead of nipples to her breasts. This took possession of his mind and horrified him. When he was recovered Byron proposed that each of the party should write a ghost story. Shelley kept pressing Mary to do this, and at last one night she hit upon the idea of Frankenstein and his Monster."

3 comments:

Arvind Mishra said...

And Mary ws only 17 and the story was finished in same and single night ! A ghost claassic was born !
Thanks Tinkoo for reminding this genesis !

Anonymous said...

At least the writing could not have been finished the same night - it's a long novel with many threads. Took me over a week to finish reading.

Or was there an earlier shorter version?

Arvind Mishra said...

Thanks Tinkoo ! You are correct ! I hd thi vague idea that it was completed in sigle night ! I just checked this -
http://members.aon.at/frankenstein/frankenstein-novel.htm