Three surprising things about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a book that has become one of staple elements of the horror genre. Whether it is as movies or the book itself, there is no denying how big an influence this book has had on the horror genre. So here are three surprising things that you might not know about Mary Shelley’s classic.

She wrote it when she was a teenager

Mary Shelley did more when she was a teenager than most of us do in a lifetime. She ran away with the poet Shelley at the age of sixteen and had two children with him over the next two years. The pair then travelled to visit Lord Byron at Villa Diodati. She was 18 and whilst there began writing Frankenstein. It was published in 1818, when she was just 20 years old.

It was written for a ghost story competition

It wasn’t an official competition, but one that was suggested by Lord Byron after the group, along with John Polidori, read the ghost stories from the book Fantasmagoriana. Byron wanted to see who could write the best ghost story – Shelley, Byron, Mary or Polidori. Neither Shelley nor Byron ever finished their ghost stories, Mary won, and Polidori’s vampire story influenced Bram Stoker whilst he wrote Dracula. It was a rather competition in the end.

People thought the poet Shelley wrote the book

It was originally published anonymously as was dedicated to Mary’s father, William Godwin. Shelley wrote the preface to his wife’s book and many assumed that because of these things that he had written the book. It even continued after the book was reprinted with Mary’s name on it.

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