NEWS: Who Wrote Frankenstein?

Exactly

Artists and other creative types always influence each other - even just friends and family pick up expressions and mannerisms of those in our environment, so why not? Not that Mr. Shelley's gender precluded him from writing a feminist work - I admittedly don't know too much of his work, but he seemed to have a pretty flexible mind from what I have read.

And, while I have only read the first page of this thread and this has probably been addressed, it seems to me feasible that Mr. Shelley did some editing to Ms. Shelley's work (and I'm somewhat surprised that in this thread people refer to Mr. Shelley as simply Shelley; while in other instances it would be obviously Mr. Shelley referred to, but in an article about TWO Shelleys, the masculocentric assumption really doesn't fit.

so....when it first came out, it was panned by critics,
But now that it has been popular for over a century, it couldn't have been written by her...

apparently Lauritsen has never heard of a one-hit wonder...

It's worth stressing that Mary Shelley did not lack a first-rate education. From today's perspective it certainly seems marginal - but women only began to gain entry to British universities in the late C19th - and not in equal numbers until the late 1970s. In the late 18th century, a woman of her social class could hope for a governess, to teach things like language and etiquette. Because education had been so important a cause to her mother, Godwin ensured that she had the best private education he could afford, and this would have been comparable, in academic terms, to that of elite males. That's why at 19 she could hold her own intellectually with Byron and Shelley.

For me, Johnny nailed this debated by pointing out that Victor Frankenstein had been modelled on Percy Shelley. I hadn't realised this - but it fits, especially when you remember that Percy Shelley kept a version of Galvani's apparatus in his rooms at Oxford. As an atheist, Percy Shelley would have been drawn to the idea that life could be created as a natural phenomemon, just as dissected frog legs could be made to kick, and executed men made to sit upright, by the application of electricity. Percy Shelley was the young Victor Frankenstein, about to improve on the historical work of Johann Konrad Dipple/Von Frankenstein at Darmstadt's Castle Frankenstein, by moving beyond primitive alchemy to modern science.

So Frankenstein was modelled on Shelley, just as Polidori's vampire was modelled on Lord Byron! (Polidori's book was published after they fell out, and Byron considered it a slander.) Thanks for that Johnny!

As for independents giving a finger to the man, I wish it were the case - but you seldom meet an academic who doesn't portray themselves in this light - in England if not in the States.

yeah , it's great isn't it ?

hmm...considering who her parents were, i don't really doubt her writing the novel.
still, sounds like a fun read.
the story goes that the four of them, Percy and Mary, Lord Byron and Mary's cousin, sister...Byron's lover, whomever...some other female,...were drinking and carousing and carrying on, and proceeded to tell spooky stories.
mary went to bed...had a horrible nightmare, told them all the story the next day, and then proceeded to write it down.
did percy help her? yeah, maybe...but didn't he take just as much from Byron? yeah, very likely.
all that drugs and sex...it's all so Rock N Roll.
by the by, i'd thought Mary was younger than 19, but i think i may just be thinking of her marriage to Percy.

I have flashbacks to Arcadia.

He must have a huge Schwanstucker!

I need some evidence here... I'm pretty sure this fella's just an Anti-Stratfordian looking for an easier target. He'll never convince us poor dumb rabble that Shakespeare was a fake, so now he's picking on a teenaged girl.

Oh, and...

"Damn your eyes!"

"Too Late!"

Where's Blue Oyster Cult when you need them....oh wait...that's Godzilla

i believe it was mary shelly who worte this novel. first off she was the daughter of mary wollstonecract and william godwin two of the greatest political thinkers and writers of the late 18th century. secondly, mary was exposed to all the greatest writers, thinkers, philosophers, artists, scientists, etc because of her parents. mary's parents were constantly entertaining the greatest minds the world had to offer in their homes in england. lastly, mary shelly's later work shows a world of growth and development from her first. take the time to read "ast man" (written and published long after percy died and partly because of his death she wrote the book). that novel is probably one of the most under apperciated novels of 19th century. but of course, Lauritsen only proves that some people just can't let go of old world traditions.

I love it! And at least in THIS thread, people aren't all just arguing in circles - there are actual valid points being made and irt would seem people here are actually LISTENING to other views and not just reiterating the same blinders-on rhetoric.

Thread that make us think and not just spew out our views in stupid angry fashions ROCK!!!

On the other hand, Harper Lee pretty much stopped publishing entirely. It's not that her later stuff wasn't as good... there was no later stuff. Shelley wrote a bunch of later stuff, it was just apparently no good.

Both sides are wrong.

Edgar Winter wrote Frankenstein back in 1972.

Of course, his gender is to some degree still open for debate.

word. see also hawthorne's "the birthmark." it has other points, but i remember studying it in college iunder woman's studies and being surprised