The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein (Hardcover)

by Dorothy Hoobler (Author), Thomas Hoobler (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In this absorbing biography, the Hooblers, historians and children's authors (The American Family Albums), chronicle the turbulent life of Mary Shelley (1797–1851), author of the classic gothic novel, Frankenstein. They open with a moving sketch of the life of her famous mother, feminist rebel writer Mary Wollstonecraft, who died 11 days after giving birth to Mary. Sixteen-year-old Mary eloped to France, in 1814, with the freethinking Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Effectively surrounded by egotistical and rapacious "monsters" such as Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, a new mother at 19, penned the tale of Frankenstein in response to a challenge set by Byron to guests at his Swiss villa. The Hooblers amply relate how the themes of Mary Shelley's masterpiece correspond to her life. Portraying Mary Shelley's stoic endurance of trauma and loss— two of her children died early—the Hooblers describe her final misery when Percy Shelley drowned while she was still in her early 20s. Summarizing Mary's other novels and recounting how she championed Shelley's posthumous literary reputation while raising her remaining son to conventional manhood, the Hooblers' well-crafted biography will appeal to all who wish to learn more about the conception of Frankenstein and its enigmatic author. 8 pages of b&w photos. (May 22)
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From The Washington Post
It's the most famous "dark and stormy night" in literary history. Every English major knows the story of the June 17, 1816, house party at the Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva, where five young English people playfully vied with one another to tell a ghost story. The soap-operatic cast of characters is irresistible. The charismatic leader of the group (and also the initiator of the contest) was Lord Byron, the foremost celebrity of the age, a bestselling poet, talented, handsome, rich, witty, titled, pan-sexually promiscuous and hounded out of England two months earlier for scandals mainly centered on his relationship with his half-sister. Byron was 28, considerably the senior in this crowd, and the luxurious Diodati was his rental; he had brought with him as paid companion a young doctor (Byron's erratic crash dieting sometimes endangered his health), John William Polidori, 21, who was also an aspiring litterateur. The third man of the group, Percy Bysshe Shelley, 23, was a decidedly radical (though always emotional) thinker who had recently begun to publish his own poetry; Byron had been unusually impressed by it, and, upon their meeting at a nearby hotel three weeks earlier, by Shelley too.

And then there were the teenagers. Mary Godwin (later Shelley) was the daughter of the famous feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, who died soon after her birth, and the freethinking William Godwin (here presented as an inveterate sponger). Mary had eloped two years earlier, at 16, with the married Shelley, and oddly had taken along her 16-year-old stepsister Claire Claremont (daughter of Godwin's second wife) on the "honeymoon." During their travels in tandem, Claire had quite probably slept with Shelley too, but she had developed an obsessive crush on the rock-star-famous Byron (who was also married) and pursued him recklessly. Women often enough threw themselves at Byron, but Claire's connection with Shelley intrigued him enough to set up a rendezvous -- and then, as he said later, "If a girl of eighteen comes prancing to you at all hours, there is but one way." By June, at the Diodati, she was secretly pregnant with his child.

Only two members of this entangled party completed the assignment, but they came through so spectacularly that their "monsters" have become essential to modern popular culture: Mary Shelley's nameless creature, created by Dr. Victor Frankenstein, and John Polidori's vampire. Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler's otherwise well-researched, fair-minded roundup of the group, The Monsters, is based on the rather contrived conceit that the members of Byron's house party psychologically paralleled the imagined monstrousness of their creations. Mary Shelley, in particular, gets a labored analysis as both creator and created, the doctor and the monster, fashioned in bits and pieces by her father, by the memory of her famous mother and by Shelley.

With the vampire, the Hooblers are on firmer ground. Gothic scholars and serious horror fans know that the modern concept of the arrogant, elegant, moody, aristocratic, malicious, sexual predator who has come to seem the one true vampire was in fact invented by Polidori in The Vampyre, published in 1819, with its antihero modeled so obviously on Lord Byron as to invite a lawsuit. Folktales about vampires -- crude animalistic blood-suckers, not so different from werewolves -- had been around for centuries, but Polidori, whose talent Byron had cruelly derided, changed this image completely, delivering a sharp, lurid social caricature of his tormentor. Lest anyone miss the point, his vampire was called Lord Ruthven -- the name that Lady Caroline Lamb, Byron's scorned lover, had given to her own caricature of him in her bestseller about their steamy affair, Glenarvon. To further complicate matters, Polidori's vampire tale was based on a fragment that Byron had scribbled out as his contest entry, and many people thought he had written Polidori's novel. In any case, all the famous vampires that followed, from Bram Stoker's Dracula (who didn't appear until 1897) to Anne Rice's Lestat and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Saint-Germain, draw their lineage from Polidori's portrait of Byron.

So much for vampires; as for Frankenstein, his curse is invoked as members of the party and their loved ones died. Claire's child by Byron and all but one of Mary's children by Shelley died early. Mary's sister and Shelley's first wife were suicides in their twenties, as may have been Polidori, who was dead at 25. Shelley drowned at 29, leaving Mary a 24-year-old widow. Byron died of a fever in Missolonghi, Greece, at 36. The women lived on, but their lives seemed sadly diminished.

Endless numbers of books have been written about these people, even the comparatively unknown Claire. But the Hooblers, long-time co-authors who once won an Edgar Award, provide a good brisk overview for readers attracted to real-life Regency romance at its most colorful. Some may remember the movies about that evening -- Ken Russell's "Gothic" (1986) or Ivan Passer's "Haunted Summer" (1988) -- and want to know more. This book will fill them in nicely.

Reviewed by Alice K. Turner
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (May 22, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316000787
• ISBN-13: 978-0316000789
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #761,376 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not literally cursed , May 27, 2006

By	Levi Morton "kbc121" - See all my reviews

The title and first review may give the false impression that the Hooblers argue that those who were with Mary Shelley at Lake Geneva were literally, supernaturally cursed. This is not so; the term "cursed" is used here and there, but the authors are quite secular and provide plenty of all-natural reasons why those who lived fast died young.

Rather, the Hooblers argue that Frankenstein was rather more a reflection of Mary Shelley's tumultuous parentage, upbringing and life than even she may have realized, and they make a good case for that.

The book starts off slowly, but by the time it begins to chronicle Mary Shelley's life for the period before and after Lake Geneva, it settles into a smooth, informative narrative which truly gives a sense of how frantic these young lives were.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling and entertaining, June 8, 2006

By	avidreader (Hartford, ct) - See all my reviews

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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I wasn't sure what to expect... , March 7, 2007

By	S. O'Toole (Illinois) - See all my reviews

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.