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The Making of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
“Invention … does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos”—Mary Shelley
In the two hundred years since its first publication, the story of Frankenstein’s creation during stormy days and nights at Byron’s Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva has become literary legend. In this compelling and innovative book, Daisy Hay stitches together the objects and manuscripts of the novel’s turbulent genesis in order to bring its story back to life.
Frankenstein was inspired by the extraordinary people surrounding the eighteen-year-old author and by the places and historical dramas that formed the backdrop of her youth. Featuring manuscripts, portraits, illustrations, and artifacts, The Making of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” explores the novel’s time and place, the people who inspired its characters, the relics of its long afterlife, and the notebooks in which it was created. Hay strips Frankenstein back to its constituent parts to reveal an uneven novel written by a young woman deeply engaged in the process of working out what she thought about the pressing issues of her from science, politics, religion, and slavery to maternity, the imagination, creativity, and community. Richly illustrated throughout, this is an astute and intricate biography of the novel for all those fascinated by its essential, brilliant chaos.
In the two hundred years since its first publication, the story of Frankenstein’s creation during stormy days and nights at Byron’s Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva has become literary legend. In this compelling and innovative book, Daisy Hay stitches together the objects and manuscripts of the novel’s turbulent genesis in order to bring its story back to life.
Frankenstein was inspired by the extraordinary people surrounding the eighteen-year-old author and by the places and historical dramas that formed the backdrop of her youth. Featuring manuscripts, portraits, illustrations, and artifacts, The Making of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” explores the novel’s time and place, the people who inspired its characters, the relics of its long afterlife, and the notebooks in which it was created. Hay strips Frankenstein back to its constituent parts to reveal an uneven novel written by a young woman deeply engaged in the process of working out what she thought about the pressing issues of her from science, politics, religion, and slavery to maternity, the imagination, creativity, and community. Richly illustrated throughout, this is an astute and intricate biography of the novel for all those fascinated by its essential, brilliant chaos.
128 pages, Paperback
Published December 15, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 23, 2018
A quick read, essentially an essay in five parts bulked out with full page illustrations, but none the worse for that. Little, I think, that I haven't read before, other than the chapter on Shelley's manuscripts of Frankenstein, which was interesting if (as I've indicted) brief.
I'm struck, as I have been when previously reading of Shelley's life, by the multiple tragedies she endured, from the coldness of, and what must have felt like the rejection by, her father, through multiple bereavements due to disease, suicide and accident, then her own relatively early death from a brain tumour. If her life was a Romantic one (with a capital 'r'), it was also frequently a melancholy and tragic one.
I'm struck, as I have been when previously reading of Shelley's life, by the multiple tragedies she endured, from the coldness of, and what must have felt like the rejection by, her father, through multiple bereavements due to disease, suicide and accident, then her own relatively early death from a brain tumour. If her life was a Romantic one (with a capital 'r'), it was also frequently a melancholy and tragic one.
June 8, 2022
A good, brief portrayal of Shelley's life, drawing on her writings. There are also many pictures of primary documents and objects associated with the creation of Frankenstein.
October 23, 2023
Non sono una gran amante dei classici ma questo mi mancava ed ero curiosa di leggerlo. Bella la storia e la scrittura scorrevole. Anche se nelle ultime pagine l'ho trovato straziante......
July 22, 2024
An excellent baseline overview. This it is a concise introduction rather than an in-depth study, and it's a good example of the former.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews