“Mary Shelley is such a well-known cultural figure, it’s easy to forget she was ever a real person. Her best-known work, the novel Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, has never been out of print and continues to be studied by academics, high school students, and fans of science fiction and horror. Her characters, Dr. Victor Frankenstein and the Monster, almost immediately became part of the pop culture canon. Somewhere in the last two centuries, Mary herself has been eclipsed by her novel, as she had been eclipsed by her husband’s literary success. It is only now, two hundred years after she began writing this book, with the first biopic based on her story poised to debut, that the woman herself is beginning to gain attention.”

Click here to read the full essay at VIDA: Women in Literary Arts.

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