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Mary Shelley and Frankenstein Quick facts Name: Mary Shelley Born: in Somers Town, London on August 30th, 1797 Died: London, on February 1st, 1851 Education: Mary received an unusual education for a girl of the time. She read many books on Roman and Greek history. Key works: Frankenstein (1818), Mathilda (1819), Maurice or the Fisher's Cot (1820), Valperga (1823), The Last Man (1826), The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck (1830), Lodore (1835), Falkner (1837).
The friends have been reading German ghost stories. One day, Lord Byron suggests they write their own ghost stories that are as frightening as the ones in the book.
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The Young Genius Mary Shelley was 18 when she began Frankenstein in 1816, a fact that should be celebrated. In 1818, the novel was published without a named author at first. It has not been out of print since. ‘We will each write a ghost story’ In her 1831 introduction to the novel, Mary tells us: ‘In the summer of 1816, we visited Switzerland, and became the neighbours of Lord Byron. At first we spent our pleasant hours on the lake, or wandering on its shores; […] But it proved a wet, [unpleasant] summer, and [non-stop] rain often Lord George Gordon Noel Byron (by Richard Westall).
