Frankenstein, a novel written by an outspoken seventeen-year-old teenage girl, has bewildered and terrified generations of readers. It is the book that introduced the sci-fi/horror concept of the mad scientist and his hideous creation. Its suspense is derived from a man's curiosity into where life comes from and how to create it. Frankenstein has become the standard against which many horror stories are compared. It still continues to be one of the most widely read and discussed novels in literary history.
             Mary Shelly was born in 1797 to Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Godwin. Mary's mother, Mary Wolstonecraft Godwin was a prominent, respected British writer who wrote on liberal subjects of which she felt very strongly about. She died tragically while giving birth to Mary (Branagh, 11). Her father, Arthur was also an English writer, but not as prosperous as his late wife, or held in as high a regard as his daughter Mary would later become (Branagh, 11). Mary's literary career began with short stories she would write as a teenager. She would write behind the church where her parents were married, and near the grave of her late mother (Florescu, 38). It is reported that she wrote there because she hoped for the spirit of her mother to guide her in her writings (Florescu, 39).
             At the age of seventeen, through a friend of her father's, she met the famous English poet Percy Bysshe Shelly, then age twenty-two. The two began an instant romance and ran off together in July of 1814. Mary and Percy were later married in December 1816 (Branagh, 13).
             As reflected in many of her writings, Mary Wolstonecraft Shelley led a basically tragic life. Her mother died during her birth. After the death of Mrs. Wolstonecraft-Godwin, Mary's father, Arthur, later remarried in order to have a female present to raise his daughter. Mary, along with a step-sister and brother, were raised for the most part by Arthur's new wife (Branagh, 14). However, M...