Why did Mary Shelley write Frankenstein?
To tell you a bit more, Mary Shelley, her husband (the poet) Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron (another poet) and Byron’s friend/physician Dr. John Polidori were all staying in a lakeside villa (in northern Italy?), writing poetry, talking, drinking too much and taking lots of laudanum (opium dissolved in brandy) for a few weeks. High as kites they were… Anyway, one evening, the after dinner conversation turned to the supernatural and they told ghost stories to each other. The stories, combined with the wine and drugs freaked Shelley out so much that he ran from the room, apparently filled with horror at the thought/hallucination of a woman with eyes instead of nipples. I know, but I swear this is true… The following day, or perhaps as part of the spooky evening, the party each challenged the other to write a piece of supernatural fiction. Something spooky, in other words. Everyone came up with something, Byron or Shelley wrote “Christabel” I think, though I don’t remember which one
