082 | W W W.SCI FI N OW.CO.U KCOMPLETE GUIDE
MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN
It was the aftermath of this rift that the couple
were trying to fl ee when they holidayed with
Lord Byron and his lover, her stepsister Claire
Clairmont, on Lake Geneva. Byron’s physician,
John Polidori, was the fi nal member of this
talented party. The ghost story competition the
friends held would become the stuff of literary
legend. Polidori would offer up The Vampyre,
the fi rst modern vampire story ever published.
Mary Godwin’s contribution was a devastating
voyage into emotional torments, reinforced
by her knowledge of the then cutting-edge
science of galvanism: the movement of muscles
in dissected frogs using electrical currents,
pioneered in the 1790s by Luigi Galvani.
Ní Fhlainn takes up the story of that strange
summer in the Villa Diodati, just a year after the
tragic death of Mary Godwin’s baby daughter:
“When you think of that night on the lake, in a
summer with no sunshine because there was a
volcanic eruption the previous year, which had
essentially knocked the climate out of whack,
you have this really profound, elemental level
of disturbance and discord. These infl uential
people are coming together to create their own
version of these monsters that will haunt them
for the rest of their literary careers and lives. The
fact that Mary Shelley outlived them all, and at
the same time was possibly the most biologically
haunted by her own story and its legacy, is
really fascinating, I think.”
Initially unable to think of a story, Godwin
found herself inspired to write Frankenstein
in the course of one feverish night. Its fi rst
edition, published in 1818, was anonymous,
and it wasn’t until a second edition in 1823
Mary Shelley’s novel has
had many iterations...(^082) WWW.SCIFINOW.CO.UK
COMPLETE GUIDE
MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN
The Vampyre
Frankenstein
Mary Shelley’s novel has
had many iterations...