Mary Shelley

Mary Wollstonecraft Godfrey Shelley was a British novelist, essayist, poet and travel guide writer born in London, England on August 30th, 1797. Amongst her more notable accomplishments, Shelley is best known for authoring the novel, Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus, which was first published in 1818.

The conception of Shelley's seminal work was bred from a popular tale in which she, her lover the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron and John William Polidor spent a summer evening at the Villa Diodati, a house Byron rented by Lake Geneva in Switzerland. Byron challenged each of them to craft a tale of macabre horror, which would be read and reviewed by one another to judge which one was the most terrifying. From this, Mary Shelley breathed life into what would become one of the most infamous stories of all time -- Frankenstein. It has been argued that Shelley's Frankenstein represents not only a seminal piece of horror fiction, but is the world's first science fiction novel as well (despite the fact that Shelley only vaguely references the scientific processes used in the creation of Victor Frankenstein's monster).

Mary Shelley passed away from numerous medical complications at Chester Square in England on February 1st, 1851 at the age of 53.

In fiction
Mary Shelley has also been the subject of several films. She first appeared as a character in the opening prologue to the 1935 film The Bride of of Frankenstein. Actress Elsa Lanchester played the role of Shelley as well as the Bride.

In 1986, director Ken Russell produced the film Gothic, which chronicled the events of the summer of 1818 at the Villa Diodati. The late actress Natasha Richardson played the role of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin.

Mary Shelley was also a central figure in the 1990 film Frankenstein Unbound where she was played by actress Bridget Fonda. In this film, Shelley meets a time-traveling scientist named Joe Buchanan (John Hurt), who comes back to the 18th century and meets Shelley as well as the Frankenstein Monster.

Notes & Trivia

 * Mary Shelley's name was incorporated into the title of the 1994 Kenneth Branagh adaptation of her novel, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.