Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Created Frankenstein
Fiona Sampson MBE is Professor Emerita of Poetry at the University of Roehampton, London. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the English Association and the Wordsworth Trust, Professor Sampson has served on the Council for the Royal Society of Literature and is Trustee of the Royal Literary Fund. As a poet, she is published in thirty-eight languages and has received numerous national and international honors. Editor of Poetry Review 2005-12, she is the author of the internationally acclaimed biographies In Search of Mary Shelley, and Two-Way Mirror: The Life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a New York Times Editor’s Choice and Washington Post Book of the Year.
Overview
Our culture is full of versions of Frankenstein and his creature. From cartoonish representations like Boris Karloff’s lumbering monster in the 1931 film of the book, to The Shape of Water (2017)–Guillermo del Toro’s thoughtful cinematic adaptation of this parable about what happens if we create nonhuman “person,” the myth has a tremendous hold on our imaginations. Most myths, including Homeric and other epic stories, are formed over centuries by generations of anonymous and named storytellers and artists. Yet the anonymous publication of the first edition of Frankenstein in 1818 was this story’s first appearance. Now that we know the novel was written by the teenaged Mary Shelley, this achievement is even more extraordinary. What’s more, when it was published Mary Shelley was already leading a complex, politically charged and controversial life as the wife of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. In this course, we’ll explore her intriguing and inspiring story.
Recommended Reading:
Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley, The Last Man, Oxford World’s Classics, 2008
In Search of Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein, by Fiona Sampson