Through The Tempests Dark and Wild: A Story of Mary Shelley, Creator of Frankenstein [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

Sharon Darrow (Author), Angela Barrett (Illustrator)

Book Description

Haunting and deeply moving - a beautifully illustrated, fictionalized account of a formative time in the life of the teenage girl who wrote our most enduring horror story.


Long before Mary Shelley published her Gothic masterpiece, Frankenstein, in 1818, at the age of nineteen, she shared fireside ghost tales at the home of family friends in Scotland. It was there that the headstrong girl - orphaned by her mother, spurned by her stepmother, and sent away by her father - spent two of her happiest teenage years. The brooding Scottish landscape and warm family atmosphere so influenced the author’s life and art that some believe her famous novel took root there. To illuminate this period in Mary Shelley’s life, Sharon Darrow skillfully spins fiction from fact. Her words are masterfully matched by Angela Barrett’s exquisite, atmospheric, authentically detailed illustrations. The result is a rich tapestry of stories within stories - those told, those written, and more extraordinary, those lived.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-8-This fictionalized picture-book biography offers an intriguing and haunting glimpse into the early life of the author. Narrowly focusing on the years she spent with the Baxter family in Scotland, Darrow provides a probable scenario of the troubled, lonely, but creative young woman struggling to find her place in the world. Sent away by her philosopher father when he remarried, Mary found friendship and inspiration to write in Scotland. When she was called home, her sorrow only continued as she coped with an unloving stepmother and a preoccupied father. In a helpful foreword, Darrow notes "some believe that Mary's famous novel took root during those two important years." Stunning watercolor illustrations give impact to this slight book. Often filling three-quarters of a spread, and glowing with soft color and period detail, the pictures draw readers into a melancholy and emotional world. Child appeal will be limited; there is only a brief mention of the famous monster story in the afterword. Older students who may be studying the novel will not find much here for reports, and younger students will struggle with the vocabulary. This beautiful book delivers a smidgen of information, some conjecture, and an emotional peek into the life of a fascinating 19th-century writer.
Beth Tegart, Oneida City Schools, NY
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Gr. 4-7. This fictionalized picture-book biography focuses on the stormy adolescence of the nineteenth-century woman who wrote Frankenstein. Spurned by her stepmother, sent away at 14 by her father to live with strangers, the young Mary Wollstonecraft found a warm home for two years with the Baxter family in Scotland, where she shared scary fireside tales of ghosts and outcast wanderers. After she was summoned back to London, she felt like an unwanted guest in her father's house, until she eloped with the poet Shelley. The teenage trauma is dramatic, and Barrett's beautiful watercolors set the archetypal outsider story against wild, dark views of the Scottish landscape. Darrow suggests that those early, crucial years helped shape the Frankenstein story, but many readers will want to know more about the writer's life and her incredible groundbreaking book. Fortunately, a long afterword fills in some of the facts. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 40 pages
• Publisher: Candlewick; 1 edition (February 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0763608351
• ASIN: B000V4SWH8
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 9.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #928,632 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars VALUABLE FOR ALL YOUNG READERS, February 25, 2003

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Through the Tempests Dark and Wild : A Story of Mary Shelley, Creator of Frankenstein (Hardcover)

Award-winning illustrator Angela Barrett utilizes luminous watercolor illustrations to vivify the life of Mary Shelley. Author Darrow skillfully weaves some fictionalized accounts into the facts known about Mary Shelley's life.

Born August 30, 1797, Mary was the child of two famous writers, philosopher William Godwin, and Mary Wollstonecraft. Sadly, the elder Mary died only a few days after her daughter's birth.

As a child Mary told stories, often ghost stories, and she spoke of a girl who could not forget the mother she had never known. She also read the books written by her parents in which they envisioned a better world with education and freedom for all.

Her relationship with her father was to change when he remarried. There were disagreements between young Mary and her stepmother. So, at the age of fourteen she was sent to Scotland to live with friends, the Baxters.

One can imagine that the child was bereft; she had lost her mother and now her father turned from her. But the Baxters offered her not only love but intellectual stimulation as well. Some are of the opinion that Mary's Gothic masterpiece, Frankenstein, began to grow in her mind during this time.

Mary later eloped with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. She was to write novels, plays, stories, and poems. Today, some 200 years after her birth, she is well remembered.

"Through the Tempests Dark and Wild" is masterfully presented, and would be a valuable addition to the libraries of all young readers.

- Gail Cooke

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars EXCEPTIONAL!, April 14, 2008

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Compulsive Reader (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Through The Tempests Dark and Wild: A Story of Mary Shelley, Creator of Frankenstein (Hardcover)

WHAT a book! Hauntingly illustrated and absolutely riveting, this book entranced me, never mind my daughter (who has since named her toy lamb Mary Shelley).

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fact and fiction blend in this survey of Shelley's life, August 11, 2003

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Through the Tempests Dark and Wild : A Story of Mary Shelley, Creator of Frankenstein (Hardcover)

Sharon Darrow's story of Mary Shelly, creator of Frankenstein, comes to life in the picturebook story Through The Tempests Dark And Wild, which will require good reading skills or parental assistance for the picturebook crowd. Fact and fiction blend in this survey of Shelley's life and writing talents.