Mary Shelley

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin . She was the author of fiction and historical novels , as well as travel books . British narrator, playwright, essayist, philosopher and biographer, recognized above all for being the author of the Gothic novel Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus ( 1818 ), with which she achieved enormous success and of which numerous films have subsequently been made.

Summary

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• 1 Biographical summary
  • 1 Childhood and youth
  • 2 Death
• 2 Work
  • 1 Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus
    • 1.1 Frankenstein in the cinema
  • 3 Sources

Biographical summary

He was born in London , on August 30 , 1797 in London , England . She was the only child of the philosopher William Godwin and the feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft (she wrote “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” in 1792 ), both two progressive thinkers who were responsible for establishing the essential foundations of her intellectual tenacity and advanced education.

Childhood and youth

In May 1814 , she met the young poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and two months later she left England and fled with him to France .

They lived together for some time and when Shelley’s first wife died in December 1816 , the couple married, a union that lasted until his death in 1822 . The result of this coexistence were several pregnancies, the vivid memory of an exciting youth, where he moved to different countries, hanging out with the intellectuals of each of them, and one only child, a boy.

He wrote novels and stories, two of them extraordinary: Frankenstein, the famous work of science fiction, and the futuristic novel The last man .

She was also the editor of Shelley’s works and contributed enormously, both to the understanding of his texts and to the history of biographical-literary criticism, of which she was a pioneer.

The rest of his days passed within the framework of daily life in the first half of the 19th century and, however diverse the interpretations of his work may be, it is necessary to take into account the relevance of the facts stated above.

Death

Mary Shelley died on February 1 , 1851 at the age of 53 from a brain tumor .

Construction site

In 1818 Mary published the first and most important of her works, the novel Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus. This work, a more than notable achievement for an author who was only 20 years old, immediately became a critical and public success. The story of Frankenstein, a student of the occult, and his subhuman creature created from human corpses, has been adapted to theater and film on several occasions.

None of his later works reached the popularity or excellence of this first one, despite the fact that he wrote four other novels, several travel books, stories and poems. His novel The Last Man ( 1826 ), considered the best of his production, narrates the future destruction of the human race by a terrible plague. Lodore ( 1835 ) is a fictionalized autobiography.

After the death of her husband in 1822 , Mary dedicated herself to spreading the poet’s work. She thus published her posthumous Poems of Her ( 1824 ) and edited her Poetic Works of Her ( 1839 ) with valuable and detailed notes.

In ( 1850 ) Matilda is published .

Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus

Frankenstein

He wrote Frankenstein , one of the best-known horror novels.

The story of Frankenstein occurred to Shelley during a summer , in which, every night, one of the friends who spent the holidays with her had to tell a scary story to the others. Surely, all the stories they told would make you shudder, but the most famous was the one Shelley wrote.

Frankenstein tells the story of a monster created from human corpses. A scientist manages to give life to this being, who, at first, is not evil, but the things that happen to him end up dragging him towards evil.

Frankenstein in the cinema

There have been several versions and adaptations of Shelley’s work to film, many of which are B-class films.

• 1931 Dr. Frankenstein, Director: James Whale
• 1936 Bride of Frankenstein, Director: James Whale
• 1943 Frankenstein and the Wolf Man, Director: Ruy Willian Neill
• 1957 The Curse of Frankenstein, Director: Terence Fisher
• 1958 Frankenstein’s Daughter, Director: Richard E. Cuhna
• 1958 Frankenstein 70 Director: Howard W. Koch
• 1967 Frankenstein created women, Director: Terence Fisher
• 1970 The Horror of Frankenstein, Director: Terence Fisher
• 1972 The Curse of Frankenstein, Director: Jesús Franco
• 1974 Young Frankenstein, Director: Mel Brooks
• 1975 Italian-style Frankenstein, Director: Armando Crispido
• 1987 Rowing in the Wind, Director: Gonzalo Suárez
• 1993 Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Director: K. Brannagh