Mary Shelley was 19 when she wrote Frankenstein, in response to a dare to write a ghost story. An early example of science fiction, the idea came to her in a waking dream. The Gothic theme and philosophical questions were likely influenced by the death of her premature daughter with poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and the suicide of his wife. More tragedy followed. Only her fourth child survived; her husband drowned. Shelley continued to write until she died of a brain tumor at 53. Read Who Cares? about the struggle for dignity at Woodruff Home for the Aged, “a lively place where old people go to die.” Learn more about the book and its characters, aged 9-90, in NOVELS.
Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, wrote the story on a dare
Woodruff Home for the Aged, a lively place where old people go to die
