The Lady and Her Monsters: A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr. Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley's Masterpiece

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Overview

The Lady and Her Monsters by Roseanne Motillo brings to life the fascinating times, startling science, and real-life horrors behind Mary Shelley’s gothic masterpiece, Frankenstein.

Montillo recounts how—at the intersection of the Romantic Age and the Industrial Revolution—Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein was inspired by actual scientists of the period: curious and daring iconoclasts who were obsessed with the inner workings of the human body and ...

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The Lady and Her Monsters: A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr. Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley's Masterpiece

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Overview

The Lady and Her Monsters by Roseanne Motillo brings to life the fascinating times, startling science, and real-life horrors behind Mary Shelley’s gothic masterpiece, Frankenstein.

Montillo recounts how—at the intersection of the Romantic Age and the Industrial Revolution—Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein was inspired by actual scientists of the period: curious and daring iconoclasts who were obsessed with the inner workings of the human body and how it might be reanimated after death.

With true-life tales of grave robbers, ghoulish experiments, and the ultimate in macabre research—human reanimation—The Lady and Her Monsters is a brilliant exploration of the creation of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley’s horror classic.

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Editorial Reviews

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"How I, then a young girl, came to think of, and to dilate upon, so very hideous an idea?" Mary Shelley's bemusement over her teenage creation of Frankenstein has been echoed for almost two centuries, but there is no denying the abiding power of this 1818 novel. Roseanne Motillo's The Lady and Her Monsters takes us into the gestation of this gothic masterpiece and the complex personalities behind it. Mary's husband Percy Shelley, her father William Godwin, her late mother Mary Wollstonecraft, her stepmother Mary Clairemont Godwin, poet Lord Byron, and others figure prominently in this fascinating debut book. And don't forget: Andrew Shaffer's Literary Rogues: A Scandalous History of Wayward Authors (HarperCollins, 9780062077288, TP, $14.99; NOOK Book, 9780062077295, $9.99) and David Shields' How Literature Se (Knopf, 9780307961525, $25.95; NOOK Book, 9780307961532, $12.99).

The New York Times Book Review - Deborah Blum
Montillo is far from the first author to ponder the real-life influences on Shelley's iconic tale; these are issues so well discussed that you can find many of them on Wikipedia. But Montillo achieves a freshness through her lively narrative approach and a fascination with long-ago science and its ethics that sparks across the pages.
Publishers Weekly
Montillo’s debut, a macabre romp through 18th and 19th century Europe, illuminates the circumstances and inspiration behind one of gothic literature’s most notorious tales. Walking a fine line between historical fact and logical conjecture, the book deftly weaves details of Mary Shelley’s early life into the cultural and scientific map of the time in which she was writing. Grim body snatchers, cadaver-carving surgeons, and nefarious alchemists litter the pages. In her retelling of the genesis story of Frankenstein, Montillo offers a constellation of personalities that surrounded Shelley during her hasty writing of the tale. Heavily referencing letters and personal journals, Montillo analyzes Shelley’s literary cohorts, providing insight into the motives of her famous literary companions, the haunted Percy Shelley and womanizing Lord Byron. The picture painted provides much room for speculation, stripping long-embellished versions of the story down to the verifiable facts. Who really gave Shelley the technical know-how to write what she did? What were the true origins of her long-standing depression? Fraught with suicides, superstitions, natural disasters, and love affairs, the life of Mary Shelley shares much emotionally with the harrowing tale of her great protagonist, Victor Frankenstein. A delicious and enticing journey into the origins of a masterpiece. Illus. Agent: Rob Weisbach, Rob Weisbach Creative Management. (Feb.)
(Starred Review) - Shelf Awareness
"Enthusiatic prose... A Spirited investigation of the bizarre times that inspired Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein."
Kirkus Reviews
A cultural biography that explores how Mary Shelley came to write her gothic classic. Montillo (Literature/Emerson Coll.; Halloween and Commemorations of the Dead, 2009) discusses how Shelley's world, as well as her life, informed the creation of Frankenstein. The basic story of how the novel came to be written--during an informal ghost-story competition among Mary, husband Percy, Lord Byron and assorted friends--is the stuff of legend. Perhaps less known is how the idea of bringing the dead back to life was already common currency. Well before Shelley's birth, Italian scientist Luigi Galvani (source of the word galvanized) was hooking up electrical charges to dead frogs. His nephew, Giovanni Aldini, took matters further by conducting experiments on a dead felon. Percy Shelley, whose poetry had long been absorbed with immortality, was fascinated by this trend in science, which he would pass on to Mary. Entwined with the history of the idea is the history of the couple, which was tumultuous from the day married Percy met William Godwin's brilliant young daughter; their lives would be rocked by infidelities, jealousies and the early death of a child. "Dream[t] that my little baby came to life again," Mary wrote in a journal, an idea that may have helped inspire her future novel. Resurrection was in the air, both among doctors and artists. Montillo occasionally loses focus, getting a little overly involved in peripheral scandals and sensational tales, but the book is never dull. Mary Shelley lived in dramatic times, when life was too short to be boring. Light fare as cultural histories go, but a pleasant stroll through the Romantic imagination.
Shelf Awareness (Starred Review)
“Enthusiatic prose... A Spirited investigation of the bizarre times that inspired Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.”
Discover Magazine
“With a flair for both drama and detail, Montillo breathes her own kind of life into the story of the men determined to discover its very elements.”
Mental Floss
“Spills the dirt on the making of the 19th-century novel--affairs, family drama, a lake house with Lord Byron!--and paints a grimly fascinating picture of the dissections and experiments in “animal electricity” that inspired the gothic tale.”
Wall Street Journal
“Her narrative… rattles enjoyably through a lurid and restless landscape. … Equally a literary and a scientific endeavor.”
New York Times Book Review
“Montillo achieves a freshness through her lively narrative approach and a fascination with long-ago science and its ethics that sparks across the pages.”
The Commercial Dispatch
“Montillo’s book is a welcome tribute to the literary, and especially the scientific, roots of the story.”
The Lady and Her Monsters
“A welcome tribute to the literary, and especially the scientific, roots of the story.”
New Scientist
“Montillo never loses sight of the fact that it was Mary Shelley’s imagination that sewed the pieces together - and provided the vital spark that keeps the tale alive nearly two centuries on.”
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780062025814
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication date: 2/5/2013
  • Pages: 336
  • Sales rank: 82,731
  • Product dimensions: 6.16 (w) x 8.36 (h) x 1.10 (d)

Meet the Author

Roseanne Montillo holds her MFA from Emerson College in Massachusetts, where she continues to teach as a professor of literature.

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