Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley was born in London in August 1797. She is the daughter of the famous philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, a forerunner of the feminist movement, and William Godwin, a radical novelist and politician. Her life is a constant escape from the conformism of the time, replete with frequent encounters with important artists and writers. At seventeen, Mary escapes to France with her future husband, the romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and in the following years the two travel to Europe in the company of Mary's half-sister, Claire, and her lover, the famous Lord Byron. In 1816, the four of them stayed at Villa Diodati, on Lake Geneva, together with the physician and writer John Polidori. To cheat boredom on rainy days, they challenge each other to write a "truly terrifying story." Nineteen-year-old Mary creates one of the most iconic monsters in world literature, Frankenstein, or the modern Prometheus, the embodiment of man's ancient fear of the unknown and the different.