Discover the Unheard: Top 14 Fun Facts About Mary Shelley That Will Astound You!

1. Tea Time Spooky Story Showdown

Feeling Franken-tastic? Hold on to your ghoulish giggles: Mary Shelley was merely eighteen and sipping tea (maybe!) with her literary pals at Lord Byron's villa when they decided to have a spooky story showdown. Fast asleep, Mary had a spine-tingling dream about a scientist creating, but then recoiling from his monstrous creation, which set the stage for "Frankenstein" to crawl off the pages and into our nightmares. No matter how educated or prepared, this scientific experiment—like the protagonist of her soon-to-be novel—simply couldn't be contained!
Source => headstuff.org

2. Spicing Up Literature with Variety

Whoever said, "Variety is the spice of life" must have had Mary Shelley in mind: Besides creating the iconic Frankenstein, she penned novels, short stories, and travelogues, even pioneering apocalyptic literature with "The Last Man" and leaving critics raving about her meanderings in "Rambles in Germany and Italy."
Source => en.wikipedia.org

Did you know Harper Lee was on track to become a lawyer before she traded it for a writing career and created the iconic character Atticus Finch? Discover more intriguing facts about her life!

=> Fun Facts about Harper-Lee

3. Bride of Frankenstein: Bolt-free Edition

Mary Shelley: the original Bride of Frankenstein, but swap the neck bolts for a pen and fiery intellect! This 19th-century powerhouse didn't just stitch together a monster-filled cautionary tale, but deftly sewed in bold statements on gender, race, and colonialism inspired by her mother's feminist writings and the socio-political climate of her time. Get ready for a Gothic novel with the humanity of Safie, the Muslim woman who bolts from family ties to pursue education and freedom, lurking beneath the monstrous narrative.
Source => mopop.org

4. Frog Legs Spark Frankenstein's Creation

Did Frogs jumpstart Mary Shelley's imagination? Hold onto your lightning rods, it's alive: Mary Shelley found inspiration in the concept of galvanism, named after Luigi Galvani, who used electricity to make the legs of a dissected frog twitch, ultimately sparking the creation of her legendary novel, Frankenstein.
Source => smithsonianmag.com

5. The Ghost-Story-Writing Slumber Party

Once upon a gloomy (yet creative) Swiss summer, where the rain trickled as ceaselessly as the ideas flowed, our beloved Mary Shelley partook in the spookiest slumber party challenge of the century: it was a hair-raising, ghost-story-writing throwdown of epic proportions! Who knew Casper had company?: This eerie challenge inspired Mary to craft the iconic novel "Frankenstein," which saw a scientist animate a creature through the thrill of electricity, eventually publishing her spine-tingling masterpiece in 1818 after several years of dedicated writing.
Source => romantic-circles.org

6. Monstrously Cool Mom at 19

"Frankenstein" made her a monstrously cool mom at 19, but her "mary" way of motherhood came from a house of horrors: Mary Shelley published this iconic tale at a tender age and skillfully wove in motherhood themes influenced by the tragic loss of her own mom, Mary Wollstonecraft, to childbirth complications, as well as her personal battle with numerous miscarriages and infant deaths, highlighting the pivotal role of love and nurturing in human development.
Source => theconversation.com

7. Tombstone Library: Mary's Childhood Reading

While Mary Shelley might have subscribed to Graveyard Digest: her childhood library was none other than her mother's tombstone! Spending hours reading by the gravesite, she traced her mother's name on the stone, which taught her how to write and became the source of her literary inspiration.
Source => lithub.com

8. Anarchy and Poetry: Mary's Upbringing

Marrying anarchy and poetry in the parlor: Mary Shelley was raised by her father, political philosopher William Godwin, who not only fortified her mind with his free-thinking beliefs but also welcomed a milieu of Romantic poets and intellectuals, such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, into their home.
Source => en.wikipedia.org

9. Stormy Summer Inspires Frankenstein

In a bout of "Weekend at Bernie's" gone gothic, Mary Shelley crafted an electrifying tale of reanimated corpses during a rather stormy summer vacay with her poetic posse: The year was 1816, and Mary's waking nightmare, spurred by conversations on galvanism, brought forth her enduring work "Frankenstein," refined with editorial help from her beau, Percy Shelley.
Source => kirstinmills.com

10. Runaway Bride's European Adventure

Mary Shelley: the original "Runaway Bride," venturing across Europe with her spouse-slash-chauffeur Percy Bysshe Shelley and sister-wife Claire Clairmont, channeling early 1800's Ozzie and Harriet meets The Simple Life: Eloped with married Percy, traveled in romantic turmoil and financial ruin, considered free love with friend Thomas Jefferson Hogg, and ultimately found her one and only love in Percy, mending her broken heart one stitch at a time.
Source => en.wikipedia.org

11. SpookFestMania: Literary Heavyweight Showdown

Forget WrestleMania, it was all about SpookFestMania when these literary heavyweights faced off in the ghost story showdown of the century: Mary Shelley's iconic novel Frankenstein was conceived when she, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, and her stepsister decided to have a ghost story competition during a tempestuous evening in Switzerland.
Source => wcpltn.wordpress.com

12. Triangular Love Affairs: Marrying Percy

Playing fast and loose with wedding vows, the grand romantic gesture of a love triangle emerged: Mary Shelley eloped with Percy Bysshe Shelley, despite him already being married with a young child in tow.
Source => lithub.com

13. Toddler-Educator Mary: Early Development in Frankenstein

Mary Shelley: creating monsters in literature quicker than a toddler can make a mess of your living room. Who knew she was the original early childhood educator of the 19th century? In her groundbreaking novel Frankenstein, Shelley tactfully combined realistic elements of human learning and intellectual development, deftly predicting how intelligent beings might deduce rules of behavior from observing us mere mortals.
Source => korymathewson.com

14. Mad Scientist's Daughter: Challenging Eras in Literature

Mary Shelley, the original mad scientist's daughter: Raised on a diet of literature and liberal debates, Shelley's progressive upbringing fueled her compelling fiction beyond "Frankenstein," with works advocating for reform, cooperation, and challenging the Romantic and Enlightenment eras.
Source => en.wikipedia.org