Mary Shelley: Mother of Monsters

Picture this—a storm-lashed night by Lake Geneva, thunder rumbling over the water, candles guttering in the gloom. In a circle of restless young poets and radicals sits Mary Shelley, barely out of her teens, haunted by grief but burning with imagination. That night, she will conjure up Frankenstein—a creation that will reshape not just literature, but how we think about science, responsibility, and what it means to be human.

But Mary Shelley’s real story goes far beyond the monster. Born to revolutionaries, orphaned young, she was a runaway, a widow, a survivor—always an outsider, never quite allowed to belong. Yet out of loss and scandal, she forged an extraordinary life. Her work gave us the first true science fiction, the first modern apocalypse, and a warning that still feels urgent two centuries later.

So tonight, we step into the world of Mary Shelley—a world of candlelight and restless spirits, genius and heartbreak, rebellion and resilience. This is not just the story of Frankenstein’s creator, but of a woman who refused to be written out of her own story.

Welcome to Rearview Mirror Chronicles. Let’s meet the astonishing Mary Shelley.