She Made A Monster by Mary Shelley

Title: She Made a Monster

Author: Lynn Fulton

Illustrations: Felicita Sala

Publisher: Alford A. Knopf

ISBN: 9780525579601

Review:

One of the scariest monsters, Frankenstein, was invented by Mary Shelley on a dark and stormy night. But in her original story, her monster could think and speak. Unfortunately, that is not the monster we know today.

Two hundred years ago, Mary Shelley was staying with friends in a lake house in Switzerland. To pass the time, they tasked themselves to write a ghost story and the best story of all of them would be the winner. Since they were all writers, Mary thought she wouldn’t have a chance. But, as the stormy night progressed with lightening and thunderous sounds, she sat at her desk by candlelight and began to write. She thought about a story of a man who used electricity to try and bring a corpse to life but failed. Mary thought about what would happen if he hadn’t failed. Hence, she created her story from there.

Mary Shelley had no idea how big and important her story would become, especially since women weren’t taken seriously as writers. She was twenty years old and her story was published in 1818. Young readers and writers can look up to this author and become inspired. Today, this type of writing fits into the science fiction genre, but at the time, this type of story was new to the era.