Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

The legacy of Frankenstein is inseparable from the legacy of its author, Mary Shelley, whose life and associations profoundly influenced the book’s writing. Shelley was born in 1797 to two prominent English philosophers, Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin. An advocate of women’s equality, Wollstonecraft rejected conventional expectations of femininity by abandoning her work as a governess—a traditional occupation for a young woman at that time—and becoming a professional writer and editor.

Wollstonecraft died shortly after giving birth to Shelley, but Shelley was keenly aware of her mother’s life and opinions growing up. Wollstonecraft’s independent streak, which manifested most strongly in her decision to pursue a writing career, influenced Shelley’s decision to leave home at age 16 to live with her lover, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (who was married at the time). Only two years later, Shelley developed the premise behind Frankenstein while on holiday near Lake Geneva during what contemporaries called “The Year Without Summer” because of a massive volcanic eruption in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) that clouded the Earth’s atmosphere with ash, causing historically cold and dreary weather as far away as Europe. Along with Percy, the poet Lord Byron, and the writer and physician John Polidori, Shelley participated in a contest to determine who could write the scariest ghost story—a contest out of which Frankenstein was born.