The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein

The general story has been covered before, but here the Hooblers provide a readable update to the creation of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" and the surrounding events of her life. In 1816, the poet Lord Byron challenged some friends to come up with ghost stories, leading to not just Mary's classic but also to the first modern vampire novel (by associate John Polidori). Here the Hooblers compile the latest knowledge of everyone involved, leading to useful biographies of Mary Shelley, her poet husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, Byron, Polidori, Mary's proto-feminist mother Mary Wollstonecraft, her anarchist father William Godwin, and everyone else involved in Mary's literary life. You'll be surprised by the free love and loose morals of all the protagonists, displayed during a brief lapse in the puritanism and patriarchy of European society when they were all in their primes. Percy and Byron come across in particular as irresponsible tail-chasing scumbags, with poor Mary suffering under her disrespectful and condescending male loved ones. But the Hooblers handily illustrate the social and historical inspirations for all these literary geniuses. They also provide a biographical reconstruction of "Frankenstein" and search for the parallels with Mary's life. This presents the only minor flaw in this book, as the Hooblers sometimes go overboard in conjecturing the inner private thoughts of Mary (and the others to a lesser extent) - regardless of the extensive use of letters and personal diaries as sources. Indeed, Byron's challenge eventually lead to the early deaths of almost everyone involved, with poor Mary surviving but dealing with a parade of personal tragedies that would have killed a weaker person several times. This wasn't really a "curse" mind you, just the result of the reckless lifestyles and poor health care of the times in which they lived. Here the Hooblers have provided a consistently readable multi-biography and literary review, based on a fresh reading of primary sources, of a unique troupe of literary fellow travelers. [~doomsdayer520~]

This book focuses on the life of Mary Shelley, which was tragic. It appears to be well-researched (I don't know enough to contradict any of their conclusions) and was very interesting, one of my nightly "just before I go to sleep" reads. There is plenty of detail about the lives of Mary's parents, her family, her very famous husband, Percy, and other historical individuals, most notably Lord Byron. But the authors keep the pace moving and do not get bogged down in dull details. I particularly enjoyed the fact that the authors freely gave their opinion on Mary and the people in her life, making the biography more accessible and less a dry textbook. There is some very interesting (and spooky) details about Percy's early death and Mary's bizarre reaction to it. They also attempt to dispel the lurid falsehoods told by Lord Byron's enemies and paint a portrait of the true man, one of Europe's first celebrity idols. He was still a bad character, and I cannot help but wonder how Mary's personal life would have improved if she and Percy had never met the man; however, would Frankenstein been written and Percy become a belated star? I came away from the novel with a deep sense of pathos about Mary and a new sense of her greatness in literary history. In a way, Mary's life was a Gothic horror story, full of real life monstrous individuals.

I bought this book because I was curious as to the origins of "Frankenstein" and walked away with a desire to learn a lot more about the central figures. The authors do an excellent job of recalling the life of Mary Shelley (which was tragic) and the rest of the group that met that "dark and stormy night" in 1816 to tell ghost stories. Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and John Polidori were all figures I knew marginally but the Hooblers have made them live in the pages of this wonderfully diverse study. They were fascinating people. I recommend this book wholeheartedly. There are very few biographies as engaging as "The Monsters". Anyone with an interest in literature, monsters or just interesting people will enjoy this book.

The Monsters by Dorothy & Thomas Hoobler is a fascinating read about the creation of the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. The book traces Mary's family tree as well as the other members of the Diodati circle in a way that gives a great deal of insight into their characters. Both Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron come off as the foolish geniuses they were. The authors spend a great deal of time sorting out the two men's various affairs, but apparently that's what they had to do as well! The real victim of these men and their foibles were their children. Percy and Mary lost four of their five children before the age of four. And Byron's abandonment of his daughter seems especially tragic as she died not long after. The Hooblers do a terrific job of analyzing Frankenstein in a way relevant for our time as well as Mary's, and they see parallels between Percy, William Godwin (Mary's father) and Dr. Victor Frankenstein. The insightful writing gives the reader extreme sympathy for Mary. She identified with the monster in her book because it had been rejected by its father figure, much as Mary was not only by her father, but also by her mentor Percy. The monsters in this book are not the kind of nightmares; they are the monster from Mary's famous book. Every one of them felt alone and cut off from the world, just like the monster. It's a universal human feeling, which is why Frankenstein has resonated through the years more strongly that Shelley's or Byron's poems, and the young woman who was ignored by the poets has outshone them finally.

The authors did a fantastic job assembling the fascinating lives of Mary Shelley, Percy, and Lord Byron. After reading Frankenstein, I could not believe such a young woman had written the story, and wanted to know more about the author. This book answers the question of how a young woman could develop and write such a story. Her life story and the people that surround her make for a very interesting read. I was shocked and surprised by many facts throughout this work. For a non fiction book, it was a real page turner and I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it.