If you were a dutiful English student in high school, you know that Frankenstein was not the name of the monster, but was in fact the name of the monster’s creator. But how much more do you know about Frankenstein, his monster, and the creator of them both, Mary Shelley? If the answer is ‘not much,’ you are in for a treat with these books. In the case of the life of Mary Shelley and her eccentric social circle of Romantic writers and artists, the truth really is stranger – and often scarier! – than fiction.