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history meme || women [2/6]: mary shelley

Mary Shelley is perhaps best known as the author of the novel Frankenstein. Written when she was nineteen and published when she was twenty-one, Frankenstein is regarded as the first true work of science-fiction and is so influential across literature and popular culture that it created an entire genre of horror stories, plays, and films.

Mary wrote the story while on a trip to Geneva with Lord Byron, John Polidori and her future husband Percy Shelley. The four had a competition to see who could write the best horror story, and Mary wrote the novel after dreaming of a scientist who created life only to be horrified by the result.

While Frankenstein is her best known work, Shelley was a prolific writer during her lifetime. Her work was heavily influenced by Romantic ideals and her commitment to political reform. Today, Shelley is regarded as a leading Romantic figure and significant for her political voice as a woman and a liberal.