Unbelievably Mary Shelley wrote the novel Frankenstein This great work captures the imaginations of itsreaders. Frankenstein remains one of the greatest examples of Gothicliterature. Unlike other Gothic novels of the time, however, Frankenstein alsoincludes elements of Romantic writing, and therefore cannot be classified assoley Gothic. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English novelist. The daughterof the British philosopher William Godwin and the British author andfeminist Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. Born in London in 1797, Mary wasprivately educated. She met the young poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in May1814, and two months later she left England with him. When Shelley's firstwife died in December 1816, he married Mary. Marys first and mostimportant work, the novel Frankenstein, was begun on Lake Geneva in thesummer of 1816 as her contribution to a ghost-story competition. Aremarkable accomplishment for such a young writer, Frankenstein was asuccess. No other work by Mary Shelley achieved the popularity orexcellence of this first work, although she wrote four other novels, books oftravel sketches, and miscellaneous tales. In 1818 the Shelleys left Englandfor Italy, where they stayed until Shelleys death. Only one of Marys andPercys children survived, Percy Florence, and in 1823 Mary returned toEngland with him and concentrated on his education and welfare. The imageof Mary Shelley presented by the biographers suggests an intensely private,imaginatively exuberant, yet also emotionally withdrawn figure, whosepolitical melancholy and strong religious faith are intriguingly at odds withthe optimistic rationalism of her famous parents, and her poet husbandsatheistic radicalism.The story of Frankenstein begins in the polar ice of the Arctic Circle.The ship of an English explorer, Walton, is trapped in the ice and is unableto travel. During the day the men on board spotted a sledge, driven by ahuge man and drawn by dogs followed by Victor ...
