Frankenstein at 200: Special Anniversary Blog Series

This year marks 200 years of one of the world’s most famous and enduring novels: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. First published in 1818, it quickly became a perpetually reincarnating creature of its own, transforming through multiple retellings, adaptations, references and parodies throughout the next 200 years. Central in each retelling is the iconic image of the ambitious scientist haunted by the horrors of his monstrous creation, most famously depicted in Jame’s Whale’s 1931 film featuring Boris Karloff’s iconic “monster,” complete with neck bolts and green skin, ushered into being by Frankenstein’s triumphant exclamations, “It’s alive!!”

The film has heavily influenced the popular perception of Frankenstein ever since, and even those who have not read the novel are now familiar with the name Frankenstein and the notion of a monstrous scientific experiment gone wrong. However, there is actually much more that is fascinating, macabre and mysterious about what Mary Shelley called her “hideous progeny,” not to mention the circumstances surrounding its creation, which are as fantastic – and sometimes as macabre and haunting – as the novel itself. First conceived in a rain and thunderstorm-lashed lakeside villa during a ghost-story-telling competition, the novel engages with some of the most exciting and fascinating scientific contexts of its day, is heavily woven through with discourses on ghosts and the supernatural, and also interlinks with some of the most tragic and haunting events of Mary’s Shelley’s turbulent life.

In celebration of Frankenstein‘s 200th Anniversary, and as part of the global celebrations during “Frankenweek” from 24-31 October, I have designed a special series of blog posts to explore these fascinating contexts. Each post, published daily throughout Frankenweek, explores a different aspect of Mary Shelley’s most famous novel, its cultural context or its afterlife, the final installment coinciding with Halloween (the day that Frankenstein‘s 1831 edition was published). This series was officially listed as a partnered Frankenreads event (a global initiative of the Keats-Shelley Association of America). Each installment in the blog series is listed below.

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DAY 1: The Birth of Frankenstein: Ghost Stories, Vampires & Villa Diodati

The fantastic tale of the birth of Frankenstein in a midnight ghost-story-telling competition held at a storm-lashed Italian lakeside villa during The Year Without A Summer. But Monsters were not the only thing to emerge from that fateful night… Celebrate Day 1 of Frankenweek with the first post in the Frankenstein at 200 Anniversary Blog Series.

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DAY 2: A Frankenstein Travel Guide: Mary Shelley’s Journeys into the Sublime

The wild and inhospitable landscapes through which Frankenstein pursues his creature are one of the most important parts of the novel. But did you know that Shelley’s depiction of these landscapes is drawn from her own real-life travels? This post explores Shelley’s travels, her connection with the sublime, and how they inspire Frankenstein.

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DAY 3: Overheard Tales: Coleridge, Shelley and Frankenstein’s Poetic Inspiration

Mary Shelley drew on a rich array of personal experiences in writing Frankenstein. This post explores one of Shelley’s earliest and most influential experiences when as a child she listened to the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge recite his supernatural gothic poem ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, and also notes one other fascinating moment when their paths crossed.

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DAY 4: Mary Shelley & Her Mother’s Ghost: Mary Wollstonecraft’s Grave, London

Walk the footsteps of Mary Shelley through the time-worn cemetery of Old St. Pancras Church, London. Drawing on my own experiences of visiting this site in 2017, this post explores the huge impact of Mary Wollstonecraft’s grave on Mary Shelley life, and considers the way that it inspires her novel Frankenstein.

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DAY 5: Frankenstein, Death & the Tragic Life of Mary Shelley

Frankenstein is all about death, but did you know that Mary Shelley’s life was itself even more tragic, and that it even began to eerily resemble, in many ways, the cursed fate of her eponymous character? This post explores the tragic losses suffered by Mary Shelley, her thoughts about them, and their impact on Frankenstein.

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DAY 6: Frankenstein’s Phantoms: Mary Shelley on Ghosts

Everyone remembers Frankenstein‘s monster, but fewer people remember that Mary Shelley’s most famous novel is also peopled heavily with ghosts, and a general pervading sense of the ghostly that reflects Mary Shelley’s own fascination with the supernatural and a genuine spiritual world. This post explores Mary Shelley’s thoughts on ghosts!

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DAY 7: Frankenstein, Galvanism & the Science of Raising the Dead

From the gruesome practice of grave-robbing and scientific experiments on the corpses of murderers, to the popular displays of galvanism that seemed to bring them back from the dead, this post explores the fascinating real-life science behind Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the ways it appears in her novel!

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DAY 8: Moving Monsters: the First Frankenstein Film, 1910

Did you know that the 1931 film adaptation of Frankenstein staring Boris Karloff was not the first time Frankenstein was filmed? The final post in this 200th Anniversary Series explores the novel’s first ever entry into the world of film with the 1910 silent feature, Frankenstein! Read about the fascinating ways the film treats Shelley’s novel, and watch it in full for Halloween!

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BONUS POST: ‘Mary Shelley’ Film Review: Beauty? Yes! Truth? Not so much… (& new podcast!)

A review of the 2018 film “Mary Shelley”, including comments on the real life of Shelley, her collaborative, creative relationship with her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, and a recorded podcast.

This special blog series is an official Frankenreads event. All posts © Kirstin Mills.