Frankenstein's Afterlife

Instead of reading Mary Shelley’s 900-page fifth novel, Lodore, save yourself some time and listen to our episode on it! We’ll provide you with the highlights, including a glimpse into the 38-year-old widow’s possibly queer relationships with other women. Sources: Mary Shelley, Lodore. http://www.gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0606381h.html Graham Allen, Mary Shelley: https://www.macmillanihe.com/page/detail/?sf1=barcode&st1=9780230019089 Virginia Bracket, Critical Companion to Mary … Continue reading 1835 – Mary Shelley’s Lodore →

On the year of his death, we look at the life and work of one of the founders of British Romanticism, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Sources: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6081 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Complete Poetical Works: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29090 Thomas DeQuincey, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2040 John Polidori, “Extract of a Letter from Geneva” (the introduction to The Vampyre): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6087 … Continue reading 1834 – The Death of Samuel Taylor Coleridge →

In this episode, you can hear Mary Shelley’s short story, “The Mortal Immortal,” presented in its entirety. This story was originally published in the 1833 issue of The Keepsake, a literary annual to which Mary Shelley contributed many stories and poems over the years. “The Mortal Immortal” is arguably her most famous short story. Did you … Continue reading 1833 – Mary Shelley’s The Mortal Immortal →

Why do we call Mary Shelley the inventor of science fiction? And why does it matter? We’ll explore those questions and also talk about what they have to do with The Royal Society of London, The British Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Anatomy Act of 1832. Sources: James Gunn (ed.), The Road to … Continue reading 1832 – The Invention of Science (and Science Fiction) →

In our previous episode, I played an excerpt from Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine, in which the hosts discussed the history of the man who may have inspired the creation of Frankenstein. This week I offer, in its entirety, an episode of Eric Molinsky’s podcast, Imaginary Worlds, titled “The Year Without a Summer.” This episode, which … Continue reading Bonus – Eric Molinsky’s Imaginary Worlds →

In this episode, I discuss the background of this podcast and play an excerpt from an episode of one of my favorite podcasts, Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine. The episode, “The (Maybe) Real Dr. Frankenstein,” was one of the inspirations for this show. Sawbones is part of the Maximum Fun podcasting network. You can … Continue reading Bonus – My Hideous Progeny →

In this bonus episode, I interview Rachel Feder, the author of Harvester of Hearts: Motherhood under the Sign of Frankenstein. Harvester of Hearts is published by Northwestern University Press: http://www.nupress.northwestern.edu/content/harvester-hearts Rachel can be found at: https://www.rachelfeder.com/ The edition of Mary Shelley’s Mathilda that we discuss in the episode, edited by Michelle Faubert and published by Broadview Press, can be … Continue reading Bonus – Rachel Feder’s Harvester of Hearts →

Frankenstein was revised several times in the early years of its rise to fame–by Percy Shelley, by William Godwin, and, in 1831, by Mary herself. Sources: A collation of the 1818 and 1831 editions of Frankenstein from the University of Pennsylvania: http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Colv1/ftitle.html The manuscript of Frankenstein at the Shelley-Godwin Archive: http://shelleygodwinarchive.org/contents/frankenstein/ Anne K. Mellor, “Revising Frankenstein”: http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Articles/mellor9.html E.B. Murray, “Changes … Continue reading 1831 – Revisions →

Nobody ever really talks about Mary Shelley’s later novels. There’s a reason for that. Sources: Mary Shelly, The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck Erin L Webster Garrett, “The politics of ambivalence: romance, history, and gender in Mary W. Shelley’s Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck.” CLIO, vol. 37, no. 1, 2007. http://link.galegroup.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/apps/doc/A174818260/AONE. Music: “Fiddles McGinty” by Kevin MacLeod “Wave in … Continue reading 1830 – Mary Shelley’s The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck →

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s novel, The Sorrows of Werther, is one of the most important texts in the romanticist movement, and is one of only three books with which Frankenstein’s creature learns how to read, alongside Plutarch’s Lives and Paradise Lost. But it’s not even the most interesting of Goethe’s books to put up alongside Frankenstein. Come sign … Continue reading 1829 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust →

In 1828, Edinburgh University was the premier institution of medical science in the English speaking world. That created a demand for dead bodies to be dissected. Two enterprising Irish immigrants, William Burke and William Hare, saw an opportunity to go into business, and so became the United Kingdom’s first celebrity serial killers. Sources: The story … Continue reading 1828 – The Burke and Hare murders →

Much like Mary Shelley, Jane Webb was a teenager mourning a death in her family when she decided to write her first novel. And much like Frankenstein, that novel laid the foundation for many features of science fiction. But The Mummy! is more than just an imitation… Sources: Jane Webb Loudon, The Mummy! unabridged from Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56426 … Continue reading 1827 – Jane Webb’s The Mummy! →

Three years after Richard Brinsley Peake’s Presumption, Henry M. Milner wrote a play that might be the greatest stage adaptation of Frankenstein in the entire nineteenth century. And he accomplished it by ignoring virtually everything that Peake had done – and virtually everything that Mary Shelley had done. Sources: Henry M. Milner, Frankenstein; or, The … Continue reading 1826 – Henry Milner’s Frankenstein; or, the Man and the Monster! →

Mary Shelley’s third book was also her only other science fiction novel, the apocalyptic The Last Man. Sources: Mary Shelley, The Last Man (Oxford World Classics): https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-last-man-9780199552351?q=the%20last%20man&lang=en&cc=us This episode features an audio clip from The Walking Dead season 5 episode 10, “Them.” Written by Heather Bellson, directed by Julius Ramsay, and starring Andrew Lincoln (AMC). The reviews of The … Continue reading 1825 – Mary Shelley’s The Last Man →

With her second published novel, Mary Shelley crafted an historical novel based on Dante, Boccaccio, and Machiavelli, and in so doing she took on works by Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, and Napoleon Bonaparte. Find out all about Valperga: or, The Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca. Sources: Mary Shelley, Valperga (Oxford World Classics): https://global.oup.com/academic/product/valperga-or-the-life-and-adventures-of-castruccio-prince-of-lucca-9780195108828?q=valperga&lang=en&cc=us … Continue reading 1824 – Mary Shelley’s Valperga →

Out of the thousands of adaptations of Frankenstein that have been made over the years, there is only one that we have a record of Mary Shelley actually seeing: Richard Brinsley Peake’s Presumption; or, The Fate of Frankenstein. Sources: Jeffrey N. Cox (editor), Seven Gothic Dramas 1789-1825 (Ohio University Press): https://www.ohioswallow.com/book/Seven+Gothic+Dramas%2C+1789%E2%80%931825 Harold J. Nichols, “The Acting of Thomas … Continue reading 1823 – Richard Brinsley Peake’s Presumption →

William Blake once said that John Milton was “of the Devil’s party without knowing it.” In this episode, we consider Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667), and its legacy among the Romantics, especially the poet and illustrator William Blake. To help me out, I interview my friend and colleague, Professor Rebecca Ariel Porte of the Brookings Institute … Continue reading 1822 – William Blake, of the Devil’s Party →

The poet, the novelist, the chivalric romancer: in this episode, we consider the three careers of Edinburgh’s favorite literary son, Sir Walter Scott. Source: The Walter Scott Digital Archive: www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk/home.html If you enjoyed Andrew Ramsay as Sir Walter Scott, you can find him at: https://www.5by12films.com/ If you enjoyed Steven Nelson, you can check out his … Continue reading 1821 – Walter Scott’s Ivanoe →

Mary Shelley’s husband is credited as a significant influence on her work, and rightly so. But a close look at Prometheus Unbound and a few of Percy Shelley’s other major works shows that he and his wife differed in some important ways, particularly in their attitudes towards science and technological progress. Sources: Neil Fraistat and … Continue reading 1820 – Percy Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound →

Did you know that the precursor to Dracula originated out of the same storytelling competition as Frankenstein? And that neither story would have been written were it not for the worst climate disaster of the last millennium? And that the modern English vampire story began as a comment on the toxic masculinity of Lord Byron … Continue reading 1819 – John Polidori’s The Vampyre →

Who was Mary Shelley? What was the genesis of Frankenstein? How did it get published? And how was it received? Sources: The University of Pennsylvania’s electronic edition of Frankenstein: http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/index.html Colleen Theisen at the University of Iowa Libraries’ blog: https://blog.lib.uiowa.edu/speccoll/tag/frankenstein/ John Pipkin, “The Man Who Invented Bookselling as we Know it”, Literary Hub: http://lithub.com/the-man-who-invented-bookselling-as-we-know-it/ This … Continue reading 1818 – Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein →

A podcast about the legacy of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. This episode features an audio clip from How I Met Your Mother season 3 episode 8 “Spoiler Alert,” written by Stephen Lloyd, directed by Pamela Fryman, and starring Josh Radnor and Cobie Smulders (CBS). It also features an audio clip from a 1986 commercial for Frankenberry Cereal.