The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein

This book is an excellent introduction to Mary Godwin Shelley and the rest of her haunted circle. The authors have done excellent research, and present a nicely readable account of five intertwined lives--mostly Mary, Shelley, and Byron, with slightly less attention given to understanding Polidori (whose short life limits exploration) and Claire. My only hesitations to give this 5 stars, instead of the 4 I settled on, are twofold, and may not bother anyone else. First is that the authors often state with complete confidence assumptions that scholars should qualify, with statements like "There can be no doubt that Mary felt hurt" (actually unless a letter or journal shows she felt hurt, there can be doubt) or "Mary was pointedly left out of this meeting" (again, without evidence, how do we know she wasn't just as glad for some quiet time, free from momentary drama?) My other concern was the dark worldview that accompanied some of these assumptions -- Byron laughs when Polidori wrenches his foot landing an awkward jump, so that must be taunting (I agree that Byron generally comes across as a jerk, but how many men in their 20's *wouldn't* laugh when a companion lands an awkward jump?) The hell-like atmosphere of Mary's childhood was painted so starkly that it surprised me to read, in a different biography, of the idyllic home she had until she was ten, meaning that (deducting the 2 years she spent in Scotland) she lived in the hell-like home on Skinner Street four years before running away with Shelley.Again -- this is an above-average book, and worth reading! These two issues--the certainty and the cynicism--were little more than a minor annoyance. I came away from this work knowing far more about Mary and Percy Shelley and about Byron and even Claire and Polidori than I had, and so will you.

I was a little worried when I bought this book, which had been recommended by a friend, that the writers might delve into the more salacious aspects of these writers/poets...and there was a good lot of room for that with Byron being a factor, but it was very factually presented. It's fascinating to see the buildup to the narrative of Frankenstein. The authors did an excellent job of weaving together the history to show how Mary's creation evolved. Her parents and her relationship with them. Her many losses of children. Her relationship with others. They did a really thorough platform for the influence of her life in Frankenstein.I'm not a scholar so I can't speak to its historical authenticity, but I was convinced by this...and I'd love to see similar books that delve into the "why" and "how" great classic literature came to be.While I highlighted a ton of this book, I thought this was one of the more interesting quotes:Victor Frankenstein realizes that the creature is his doppelgänger--an insight that seems to have extended to readers and audiences, for today the name "Frankenstein" is popularly applied not only to the creator, but to the monster, who is never named in the book.

It's axiomatic that genius is often characterized by questionable social skills and/or behavior, and it would appear to hold true in the case of Mary Shelley's circle of family and friends. The Hooblers present unflinching portraits of Mary, her husband Percy, father William Godwin and friend, Lord Byron among others. Mary receives the kindest treatment next to her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft (Author of "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman) Both Marys suffer at the hands of the men in their lives, and Mary the younger spends a good deal of time trying to make some sense of that suffering. But the men... they are true pieces of work. They are all selfish, self-centered, arrogant and cruel even in their affections. They seem to have little use for the women in their lives, less for the children they father promiscuously. They live for their "art" and the pleasures it buys them. And in spite of that art, they are not particularly attractive when viewed through this lens. Of the three most prominent women in the book, Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont, is the least talented and the most unpalatable thanks mostly to her single-minded pursuit of Lord Byron and her possible romantic involvement with her sister's husband, Percy Shelley.I picked up the book originally because I have long been fascinated by the events of that "haunted summer" of 1816 when Byron challenged his friends to write a ghost story. The Hooblers present those events as a kind of centerpiece to the larger story of Mary Shelley, beginning with a short but careful examination of her mother's life with an eye to how it affected Mary's life and writing. One is tempted to wonder how Wollstonecraft might have viewed her daughter's elopement with Percy Shelley, and her writing career. As it is her death, not even a fortnight after the birth of her younger daughter, was the first of many losses that informed Mary Shelley's work. And in less than a quarter century, the younger Mary would lose three children, a half-sister, her husband and the love -- such as it was -- of her own father because of her relationship with Shelley. She would be haunted by the suicide of Shelley's first wife, Harriet, and her husband's chronic infidelities, possibly even with Claire. It's no wonder that she produced one of the most memorable horror novels ever penned.