The Monsters : Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein

One murky night in 1816, on the shores of Lake Geneva, Lord Byron, famed English poet, challenged his friends to a contest--to write a ghost story. The assembled group included the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley; his lover (and future wife) Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin; Mary's stepsister Claire Claremont; and Byron's physician, John William Polidori. The famous result was Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a work that has retained its hold on the popular imagination for almost two centuries. Less well-known was the curious Polidori's contribution: the first vampire novel. And the evening begat a curse, too: Within a few years of Frankenstein's publication, nearly all of those involved met untimely deaths. Drawing upon letters, rarely tapped archives, and their own magisterial rereading of Frankenstein itself, Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler have crafted a rip-roaring tale of obsession and creation. "The Monsters tells the story of the real-life characters surrounding the creation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Drawing on private diaries, personal letters, and contemporary accounts, Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler have crafted a spectacular narrative of artistic creation and personal destruction. They reveal not just the true origins of two of the most famous monsters in popular culture, but also the monstrous and tragic nature of the young people who gathered that summer on the shores of Lake Geneva."--Jacket The authors of the award-winning In Darkness , Death share the remarkable true story of Frankenstein's origins and the curse on its creators.