MARY SHELLEY was born in London on August 17, 1797. Her mother, the celebrated feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, died a few days after her birth. Her father, William Godwin, a well-known anarchist and atheist writer, tutored Mary. In 1814, when she was sixteen, she fell in love with the married poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and they eloped to France. In 1816 the couple travelled to Lake Geneva to spend the summer with the poet Byron. Mary was inspired to write "Frankenstein" after Byron arranged a ghost story competition during their stay. In the autumn of 1816 Shelley's pregnant wife drowned herself in the Serpentine in Hyde Park and Shelley immediately married Mary. The couple had four children together but only one son survived infancy. They lived in Italy until Percy's death in a boating accident in 1822. Mary continued to write until her death in London on February 1, 1851. She is buried in Bournemouth.
- ""Frankenstein" launched an entire genre of dystopian fiction, and a legacy of horror at the consequences of unbridled experimentation." --"Daily Telegraph"
This classic tale of horror and obsession features an appropriately overwrought reading by three talented British actors. Dr. Victor Frankenstein becomes enslaved to the idea of reanimating the dead, spending years in a manic frenzy of scientific study and creation. But once his monster lives, Frankenstein is so horrified by the ugliness of "the demoniacal corpse" that he abandons it, never imagining that they will meet again in murderous circumstances. Daniel Philpott does most of the narration, employing a Germanic accent when he voices the good doctor's dialog. Roger May does a superb job as Capt. Robert Walton. The best performance, though, is by Jonathan Oliver as the Daemon. He makes listeners feel pity and compassion for this creature who longs only for love and intellectual stimulation; instead, he cannot help but be the personification of evil in his own mania for vengeance. VERDICT The reading is well paced, and the narrators are not afraid to sound overwrought when appropriate.-B. Allison Gray, Santa Barbara P.L., Goleta Branch, CA (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
- ""Frankenstein" launched an entire genre of dystopian fiction, and a legacy of horror at the consequences of unbridled experimentation." --"Daily Telegraph"
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