Monster: The Story of a Young Mary Shelley

By Mark Arnold

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the book that changed the world

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Monster: Publishing to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and a movie starring Elle Fanning as Mary Shelley, Monster is a brilliant fictionalized biography akin to The Other Boleyn Girl.

Frankenstein Two centuries ago this year, the young woman who invented science fiction was only 20 when she wrote the book that became Frankenstein. Mary Shelley said, “People ask how I, then a young girl, could think of, and dilate upon, so hideous subject?”

Gothic Romance: Her father gave her a far better education than any woman of the age could hope for and made her the victim of ongoing incest. At 15, she became involved with one of the greatest poets in England and made love to him on her mother’s grave. When she was 16, she escaped from home by running away for a six week walking tour of Europe and formed a ménage a trois with Shelley and her sister.

Mary Shelley - Frankenstein: Her immediate influences were two of the greatest poets of the age. Her lover, Percy Shelley, coached her to expand her understanding of writing. Her mentor, Lord Byron, challenged her to prove she was as good a writer as the best poet-philosophers of the Enlightenment. Both men admired her mind, and both wanted more. By the time she was 20, she published the book that changed the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mango
• Release date: Oct 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781633536524

Mark Arnold

Living along the Big Sur coast of Central California in Los Osos. I've been a Geologist, a Journalist, and a University Professor. Working on a four book series called Wake Of The Liar.

Reviews for Monster

[cariola_6 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This was quite a disappointment. Or maybe I've just read too many novels based on Mary Shelley's life and/or the creation of her novel. The author posits that Mary was sexually abused as a young girl, first by her stepbrother's "games" (that she inevitably lost and had to pay penalties of increasing sexual intimacy) and also by her overly affectionate father, who frequently comments on her resemblance to his dead wife. When her stepmother blames her for her "filthy" behavior, she is sent to live with a family in Scotland, the Baxters, where the widowed father will serve as her tutor and his two daughters as her friends and role models. The high point of Baxter's education is taking Mary to see the birth of a two-headed calf, born from the union of mother and son, as a warning to Mary that her relations with her own father could be disastrous, both biologically and socially. Ashamed, Mary returns home but repulses her father's kisses and offers to sit on his lap. It is as much this breech as her own passion that causes her to run off to the Continent with Percy Shelley. Her stepsister Claire and threatens to reveal her plans if she is not taken along. And thus begins the famous menage a trois.This was all new info to me, and it's unclear whether this was based on fact or mere speculation by the author. But from this point out, I got even more bored than I already was. The travels through France, Italy, and Switzerland were old hat, and the tedious pages and pages of philosophical discussions (intended, I am sure, to show their brilliance) came off as silly and insignificant. The visit to Byron's villa was, again, old hat, and the story of how Mary came to write Frankenstein was what you already know if you've read any introductions to the novel.If you want to read a really good, original novel on this subject, I recommend Passion: A Novel of the Romantic Poets and the Women Who Loved Them by Jude Morgan. Skip this one.

[sumisbooks · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This was a bail...This was the first book I've read in my Mary Shelley obsession and I'm sad to say it was a flop for me. Try as I might, I just couldn't do it.The author has written a biography on Mary Shelley here and has obviously done some research into her life, but the fact that he decided to write the book from her point of view is extremely disorienting. I just feel like there are things in the book that she would never say and things that are not true to the times of the era in which she lived. I give the author full marks for bravery in his attempt to channel the great Mary Shelley, but unfortunately, I'll pass on this one.