Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Bath Abbey

My latest feature for the 2018 Discover Your Ancestors bookazine (order here) is on Mary Shelley and Frankenstein. This landmark novel was published 200 years ago (Arizona University has a celebratory project here). Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus electrified the reading public when it first appeared. The story of hapless experimenter Frankenstein, his Creature’s torment, and the fearful revenge It wreaked on his creator, is now embedded in our cultural mindscape. 

The Shelley Frankenstein Festival is planning more events to commemorate Frankenstein, including a theatre production of a re-imagined version of Frankenstein, at the Shelley Theatre, Boscombe in May.














Images:
West front of Bath Abbey, Penny Magazine, 13 July 1833.  During the autumn of 1816, Mary worked on ‘Frankenstein’ while she, Shelley and Claire Claremont stayed in lodgings near the Abbey. Author’s collection.
The Galvanic apparatus.Coloured engraving, 1804, by J. Pass, after H. Lascelles. Courtesy the Wellcome Library, no. 47529i.