FRANKENSTEIN DISASSEMBLED: The remarkable life of Mary Shelley.
About this episode
An in-depth conversation about the life and works of Mary Shelley, featuring insights from biographer Fiona Sampson.
Fiona Sampson's probing biography of Mary Shelley is the first of a trilogy of biographies of 19th century writers of the romantic period. After sharing her approach to biography, Fiona talks about Mary's famous parents: Mary Wollstonecraft, influential philosopher and educator, who died of puerpural fever shortly after Mary's birth, and William Godwin and radical philosopher. We discuss the intellectual household in which she became a precociously intelligent child, her reading that included key 'natural philosophers, of the day, two long childhood trips that found their way into 'Frankenstein', her elopement at 16 with philandering poet Shelley, the ever-present step-sister, and their subsequent travels. These included the fateful stay in Geneva where Byron had taken a villa and the idea of writing horror stories arose. The book was completed when she was only 18 and we explore the various themes and interpretations of the novel, an immediate best-seller with several early stage versions. We talk about her bereavments (3 of 4 children and Shelley, in 1822), her challenging life post-Shelley, and her other novels, including the less known but equally genre-creating 'The Last…
More episodes of BRAINLAND
- PROTO: Uncovering the shared origin of the world's most spoken languages.
- GEORGE SAND: The life, times and shifting reputation of an early feminist writer and thinker.
- TRANSHUMANISM: Humanity's great hope or the devil's work?
- THE MATCHBOX GIRL: Recreating Hans Asperger's world in fiction
- HANS ASPERGER AND THE AUTISTIC SPECTRUM: Reflections on the past, present and future
- SEASON 2 FINALE: Surfing Brainland
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the BRAINLAND podcast page.