Mary Shelley: Writing Frankenstein

this video is brought to you by squarespace from  websites and online stores to marketing tools and   analytics squarespace is the all-in-one platform  to build a beautiful online presence and run your   business check out squarespace through the link  in the description below more on them in a bit it was a night out of some gothic horror in june  of 1816 a terrific storm erupted over lake geneva   lightning flashed across dark water thunder  boomed in a bedroom in the villa dia deity   a 19 year old girl lay awake transfixed by a  disturbing vision i saw the hideous phantasm   of a man stretched out she would like to say  and then on the working of some powerful engine   show signs of life it was a half glimpse of a  nightmare one most of us would have probably   tried to shake off as a sign that would have  too much cheese and fine port before bed but   that teenage girl wasn't most of us she was mary  wollenstonecraft godwin the future mary shelley   and that vision would become the basis for  one of the 19th century's greatest novels   frankenstein a pioneering classic of sci-fi  and horror frankenstein today remains one of   the most influential books ever written yet how  much do most of us know about the woman behind it   born of famous parents connected to the  romantic poets mary shelley's life from   the outside appeared charmed yet it was also  a life lived in the shadow of immense tragedy fittingly for someone who'd write a classic work  of gothic horror mary shelley was born shortly   before the stroke of midnight on august 30th 1797.  of course she wasn't born mary shelley although   we're going to keep using her married name in  these early sections since it's the one that   everyone knows but rather mary wallston craft  godwin a frankenstein version of her parents   names william godwin and mary wollstonecraft it  was a name that would give her a lot to live up   to both william and mary were radicals who were  as famous as they were financially unstable the   political philosopher william godwin was an early  proponent of anarchism and a leading writer on   social issues if anything mary wollstonecraft was  even more impressive the author of the vindication   of the rights of women she lived and breathed  feminism at a time when men mostly saw women as   pretty baby-making machines sadly for mary  shelley though she'd never get to meet this   one-woman powerhouse two hours after her birth  it became clear the afterburst hadn't come away   william godwin went to find help and at 3am  he returned with the physician louis poynyand   unfortunately poignant was a product of his time  a doctor who thought washing his hands before   touching a patient was as absurd as operating  while wearing lederhosen poignant removed the   traces of afterbirth with dirty fingers this led  to serious infection and mary wollstonecraft died   of septicemia just 11 days later and no we can't  think of a better metaphor for the backwardness of   gender relations in this era than an intelligent  woman literally being killed by an underqualified   and overconfident man the death of her mother when  she was just a few days old left a hole in mary   shelley's young life that would never be filled  not that william didn't try in 1801 he married   mary jane claremont who'd soon become famous  publishing children's books it was a union that   swelled the family to a ridiculous size alongside  shelly the younger generation now consisted of a   half-sister fanny claremont's children claire and  charles and would soon also include a brand new   baby but while shelley and her stepsister claire  claremont became close friends the same could be   said of her stepmom as far as young shelley was  concerned mary jane claremont was evil incarnate   like if some mad scientist had managed to  cross breed the wicked witch of the west with   diobrando by all accounts this was hugely unfair  mary jane tried to be a good substitute mother   even helping shelley put out her first book at age  eleven the children's tale mancia nong tong poor   but shelley wasn't having these kind gestures this  woman had replaced her dead mother that was all   she needed to hate her still for all its drama  shelley's childhood was enriching in ways that   were hyper unusual for the era actually scratch  that for any era really while plagued by debt   and forever teetering on the brink of bankruptcy  william godwin was still lionized in intellectual   circles this meant his children were taken to  see lectures from leading thinkers it meant   home visits from admirers like samuel taylor  coolridge it also meant being encouraged to   better themselves by spending each morning deep  in study by learning languages shelly herself   became fluent in latin greek french and italian  by the summer of 1812 then mary shelley was 14   hyper-intelligent extremely well-read and able  to run intellectual circles around most adults   she could also be hell to deal with that june she  was packed off to stay with friends in scotland   for two years ostensibly for her health but  more likely because she and mary jane were on   the verge of killing one another still the move  wasn't permanent she could pop down to london on   visits it would be on one of these visits that  she would meet the man who'd transform her life the fact mary shelley ever met her husband  was down to sheer dumb luck the son of an   aristocratic family percy shelley was 20 already  married and had a child on the way but he was also   a radical atheist who'd recently been disowned  by his dad sir timothy and was now hunting for   a surrogate father the man he'd landed on well  his political hero william godwin mary shelley   was just 15 when the poet came blowing through  the family's life like a breath of fresh air   zephyr from a distant land the teenage girl was  very interested in exploring but it wouldn't be   until she turned 16 and returned permanently  from scotland in spring of 1814 that their   romance really began at first it was more an  over-romanticized courtship the pair sought out   her mother's grave where they would sit together  and read her works but at some point it clearly   became more than just a two-person study group  so much so that william godwin tried to forbid   shelley from ever seeing percy instead she ran  away with him on july 28 1814 by the faint light   of dawn mary and her stepsister claire clement  snuck out of the family home and into a waiting   carriage then the two of them set off with percy  for the adventure of a lifetime for six weeks that   summer the trio toured europe still shattered  by the napoleonic wars they saw france germany   switzerland a great romantic tool that would later  inspire mary shelley's first adult book history   of a six-week tour at last that september shelly  returned to england penniless pregnant and firmly   in love only to find her family super unimpressed  william godwin might have been a radical but that   radicalism didn't extend to some poet prancing in  and sweeping his teenage daughter off to europe   shunned by their relatives suddenly at the heart  of a juicy society scandal shelly and percy moved   in together to try and make a go of it since  percy was an advocate of free love this included   odd stuff like shelly unenthusiastically having  an affair with his friend thomas jefferson hogg   it also included unimaginable tragedy in february  of 1815 mary shelley gave birth to her first   daughter prematurely 11 days later she came in to  wake the baby in the night for feeding but saw it   was sleeping so deeply that she left it in peace  the next morning her yet unnamed daughter was dead   it was a heartbreaking moment in the couple's new  relationship one perhaps best encapsulated by an   entry in shelley's diary dream that my little baby  came to life again that it had only been cold and   that we rubbed it before the fire and it lived she  wrote awake and find no baby and just a warning if   you're already feeling rather depressed children  dying is going to be a constant miserable theme of   this episode if you want a happy story well look  elsewhere only weeks after the nameless child died   shelley felt pregnant again this time the baby  would survive long enough to get a name william   but while william would stick around for a couple  more chapters please don't get too attached to him   come spring of 1816 the couple were bruised by  tragedy and fed up with still being the object   of a scandal finally in may they seem to have  decided you know what to hell with this judgmental   rainy island again joined by claire claremont  they once again set out for europe this time   in the direction of italy but first they'd make a  detour clairemonsi had other reasons for heading   to europe just recently she'd conducted an affair  with the brooding dashing lord byron and was   desperate to see more of him it would be thanks to  her pushing that the shelley's changed direction   heading instead for the shores of lake geneva and  the waiting scandalous poet there the four of them   were destined to make literary history now just  before we get into the rest of today's video let   me tell you about our glorious sponsor squarespace  this is the age of creation think about it people   are online making stuff all the time people  making youtube channels podcasts websites even   online stores you've either got a great idea  yourself or you probably know someone who does   and when it's time to move that project from your  head to the screen in front of you that's where   squarespace comes in it's the perfect web tool to  help you fashion the internet into whatever you   want it to be maybe the hands-on site with lots of  opinions and ideas about what exactly your website   should look like if so very cool squarespace gives  you all of the customization options you could   ever want with no updates no patches no 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domain and let's get back to today's video   in the spring of 1815 mount tambora in modern-day  indonesia detonated like an angry bomb insane   amounts of gases were spewed into the atmosphere a  sulfur veil that enveloped the planet lowering the   temperature of the northern hemisphere by around 4  degrees this was such a sharp drop that 1816 would   become the year without summer that year rivers  froze in august floods swept europe there was   record rainfall in geneva that meant shelley  percy byron and clement spent their spare time not   boating and hiking and thinking sublime thoughts  but stuck inside staring out at the rain try not   to go mad from the moment the trio had hooked  up with byron and his personal physician john   polidori they'd gotten along like an indonesian  volcano on fire moving into neighboring homes but   as the weather turned and they began spending more  time cooped up in byron's villa died daddy that   friendship had curdled into unbearable tension  polidori was trying to get into mary shelley's   pants while claremon was trying to get into  byron's while byron was doing his utmost to stop   that from happening as the tension grew it became  clear that the group was on the verge of everybody   either shooting one another or starting a gigantic  and insanely regrettable orgy so lord byron   decided to occupy them with a bit of a challenge  everyone at his villa would have to write a ghost   story for some this was easy john polidori  got right to work on the tale of a seductive   aristocratic vampire that was essentially an  extended satire on byron himself but mary shelley   had hit a brick wall for days she was forced to  confess each morning that her muse had evidently   carried on to italy without her with each day  her frustration and embarrassment grew then   one evening it happened shelley was lying awake in  bed listening to the tambora caused storms howling   over the lake her mind was filled with thoughts of  a discussion byron and percy had been drawn into a   few nights earlier on the then red-hot science of  galvanism this was the theory that human corpses   could be reanimated with electricity this is where  we first met mary shelley in our introduction   today waiting on the gods of writing to send  her a spark instead they sent her an inferno the   vision shelley saw of an engine bringing a dead  man to life set her mind racing come mourning   she had the germ of something a story about a  hubristic scientist who creates new life only   to abandon it driving it to murder a story that  would go down in history as frankenstein one of   the english language's earliest works of science  fiction frankenstein is at once both a deceptively   simple fable and a deeply laid work within its  gothic pages people have seen an allegory of the   french revolution and the forces it unleashed  a meditation on the advances of the industrial   age even a veiled commentary on slavery the fight  for abolition in britain's colonies being one of   shelly's passions perhaps more importantly though  it's simply a cracking read over 200 years later   shelley's story still holds up as well as the day  it was written on publication in 1818 it was a   sensation one friend wrote percy that the novel  seemed to be universally known and read while   critics were divided between those who thought  it powerful and those who thought it unseemly   readers just couldn't get enough of it the only  annoying thing must have been the assumptions that   some of them made since shelley had published the  book anonymously and since percy had written the   forward and since this was the good old sexist  past everyone was like let's just assume that   percy shelley wrote this i mean there's no  way anyone with a vagina could have created   frankenstein am i right it wasn't until the second  edition in 1823 that mary shelley would finally   get the public credit she deserved by then though  her young life would have been consumed by loss it was the 29th of august 1816 when shelley percy  and claire returned to england mary carrying the   idea for frankenstein claire carrying byron's  baby but rather than a triumphant homecoming   it was the beginning of a series of misfortunes  that would soon come to plague shelley the first   took place that autumn on october the 9th shelley  lost her half-sister fanny to suicide exactly one   month later percy's wife harriet threw herself  into the thames while pregnant with his child her   body was only found on december 10th but while  percy may have felt some dark sense of guilt he   also didn't look a gift horse in the mouth barry  and percy shelley were officially wed just 20   days after harriet's waterlogged remains were  pulled from the river a real too soon moment if   there ever was one still the marriage started  well enough now her relationship with percy   was official william godwin reconnected with his  daughter just five months later shelley finished   frankenstein that same year 1817 her daughter  clara was born giving the shelley's hope that   their first lost baby had been an unhappy one-off  but no this is the life of mary shelley remember   one we've already warned you is filled with  endless agonizing sadness even as the publication   of frankenstein approached she was going to have  to deal with more misery in spring of 1818 the   couple returned with claire to europe hoping to  reconnect with byron in italy and introduce him   to his new child at first things were great the  group found it liberating to be out of stuffy old   england back in europe where they felt they could  be free but the trip quickly soured in venice that   september baby clara caught dysentery and died  having just turned one year old the shelley's   grief was vast unnameable it was also only the  beginning the following year in rome their son   william was carried away by malaria aged just  three the deaths of her two surviving children   in such quick succession broke mary shelley she  withdrew into herself her relationship with percy   crumbling in her diary she wrote the despairing  phrase this is the journal book of misfortunes   honestly that was an understatement mary shelley  may have only been 22 and already the mother of   three dead kids but her future was filled with yet  more tragedy still there was the odd ray of light   when william died shelley was already pregnant  again in november 1819 she gave birth to percy   florence shelly his middle name taken from the  italian city where he was staying and just to stop   you from worrying fear not unlike his siblings  percy florence actually survives into adulthood   in fact the boy's birth heralded a brief period of  calm as frankenstein became a sensation home mary   and percy settled with their son in pisa there  they made international friends and briefly lived   the lives that they'd always dreamed of ordinary  lives not haunted by the specter of death watching   their child grow in the life of mary shelley this  time was an oasis a little pool of happiness amid   a dark desert of grief so let's just give her a  moment to enjoy it shall we before we get back   to all of the horrid stuff a short break between  chapters where for the briefest of seconds we can   let our heroine be happy because when we  come back things are only going to get worse   in may of 1822 the shellies and claire arrived  in san terenzo with their friends edward and jane   williams to spend summer on the wild italian coast  from the start the trip was troubled just before   they left the daughter claire had had with byron  died of fever aged just five at the same time mary   and percy's relationship was badly on the rocks  half wrecked by percy's affairs and the other half   by the lingering depression both still felt over  the children's deaths shelley was even pregnant   again but not happily already in a low mood she  couldn't take the wild swings of pregnancy by the   time they arrived at their rented home of carson  magley she was convinced disaster laid just over   the horizon horrible as it is to say she was right  the first tragedy came on june the 16th that day   shelley suffered a horrifying miscarriage one  which saw her lose so much blood it's a miracle   she survived in fact she nearly didn't it was only  by making her sit in an ice bath for hours that   percy managed to stop the bleeding allowing her  to see another day the brutal miscarriage marked   the end of shelley's fifth and last pregnancy  having been pregnant for most of the previous   six years the demands in her body had simply  gotten too great after this there would be no more   attempts at children especially when you consider  what came next while mary shelley's depression had   manifested itself in becoming withdrawn percies  had made itself felt through strange visions   and increasingly erratic behavior not long after  his wife's near fatal miscarriage he and edward   williams took his boat don juan across the gulf  of speezia on july 8 1822 they were warned against   returnings and storms were brewing but percy seems  to have just waved the threat away and then when   a storm did blow up he refused an offer of help  from a passing ship maybe he was just too naive to   realize the danger they were in or maybe losing  his kids had left him with a death wish either   way the don juan was lost in the squall ten days  later percy shelley's waterlogged body was found   by then it had been in the sea for so long that  his face had been eaten away he was identified   by a book of poems in his pocket after a brief  period buried to comply with italian law shelley   had her husband's body dug back up on august 16  his remains were burned on a beach watched over   by two old friends and percy's fellow poet lord  byron supposedly his heart was retrieved from   the ashes which shelly then wrapped in silk and  carried around for the rest of her life the death   of her husband aged 29 was a shock mary shelley  would never recover from for eight years she wrote   i communicated with unlimited freedom with one  whose genius far transcending mind awakened and   guided by thoughts i conversed with him recited  my errors of judgment obtained new lights from him   and my mind was satisfied now i am alone oh how  alone the stars maybe hold my tears and the wind   drink my size but my thoughts are a sealed  treasure which i can confide to none but of course   she wasn't really alone percy florence was still  alive and now she needed to take care of her son   without her husband's income at first shelley  tried to remain in italy in the country her   husband had loved so much soon though the  money ran out percy's father said timothy   coldly informed her he would only support her  son if percy florence was raised in england   so it was that against her will the author of  frankenstein returned to the country of her birth   originally she hoped to publish percy shelley's  collected poems but sir timothy was such a   colossal penis that he threatened to cut her off  if the family name ever appeared in print again   unable to raise a son on her income alone  shelly obeyed waiting for when the awful   old man might die and allow her and her boy to  be free sadly she would wait a very long time shelley's one consolation back in rainy  conservative england was that frankenstein's   popularity was greater than ever 1823 saw  the first theatrical production a play that   was such a smash hit but there would be six  versions of it that year alone by 1824 the   tale was so well known that the foreign secretary  directly referenced it in a speech to parliament   as shelly riley noted of this period lo and behold  i found myself famous by now though it wasn't just   frankenstein that she was famous for but for  being the last living link to the romantics yep   it's time for yet more characters to die in this  case lord byron who was carried away by illness   while fighting in the greek war of independence  with john polidori already dead by suicide mary   shelley and claire claremont became the last  surviving members of the bright young poets who'd   gathered at lake geneva only eight years  earlier to change literary history or as   shell yourself put it i am the last relic of  a beloved race my companions extinct before me   a quick reminder if you're needed at this stage  she's only 26 26 already widowed with three dead   children and a miscarriage behind her and all her  closest friends long enough to the great villa   diodati in the sky still shelley was at least able  to keep working in 1826 she published the last man   a tale about the lone survivor of a devastating  plague that's now considered her second best work   unfortunately sir timothy hit the roof when he  found out and he briefly cut her off because   apparently that's just how miserable that old [ __  ] was after that shelley's art never quite hit the   same heights again now we don't want to give the  impression nothing happened in these later years   while poor by the standards of her class shelley  was still able to travel even meeting the marquis   de lafayette in paris in 1828 like a 19th century  version of one of those marvel cameos despite   sir timothy she still lived in an orthodox life  befriending the writer mary diana dodds who was   romantically involved with another woman and  only ever appeared in public as a male she   even continued writing in 1834 shelley picked  up regular work writing biographical sketches   of famous people for the cabinet cyclopedia a  sort of handheld biographics for old-timey folk   but still in the grand scheme of things these were  the quiet years shawn of the adventure romance and   impact of shelley's early life the flip side of  that though is that they were also stable percy   florence grew up to be a healthy young man free of  the tragedy that bedeviled his long-dead siblings   as the years passed a timothy mellowed at least  allowing shelly to publish a definitive volume of   her dead husband's poems in 1840. better still the  old fart died not long after leaving shelly and   her son enough money to never worry about poverty  again not that shelley had long to enjoy her   newfound wealth mary shelley died of a brain tumor  on the 1st of february 1851 at the age of 53. she   left behind not just a sun and an unfinished  biography of percy shelley but also a creation   that had taken on a life of its own from its very  first production in 1823 frankenstein became a   staple of the theater with hundreds of versions  staged in multiple countries because of this   popularity it was eventually picked for adaptation  by the new film industry that arose in america   first in 1910 by thomas edison and then far more  famously by universal in 1931 and while boris   karloff's silent hulking monster maybe a million  miles away from the erudite creature of shelley's   tale the essence of her story that flicker  of sympathy we feel for the devil remained   unchanged today it's hard to imagine how fiction  would look without frankenstein so influential was   it that its effects can be seen almost everywhere  like bram stoker's dracula or the works of edgar   allan poe it's the bedrock of modern genre fiction  yet there was more to marry shelley than just this   one book as this video has hopefully shown she  was a woman who seemed to stand apart from her   own time not just as a literary pioneer but  as someone who tried her damnedest to live   on her own terms she didn't always succeed but  we've no doubt that had mary wollstonecraft   lived to see the woman her daughter grew up  to be she would have felt nothing but pride so i really hope you found this video  interesting if you did please do hit   that thumbs up button below don't forget to  subscribe and as always thank you for watching

Channel: Biographics

Views: 74,086

Keywords: biographics, biography, biographies, people, famous people, simon whistler

Id: yANZEaMfHHs

Length: 24min 41sec (1481 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 02 2021