Shelley Unbound: Discovering Frankenstein's True Creator

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Shelley Unbound: Discovering Frankenstein's True Creator
Shelley Unbound Feral House 2013 Cover.jpg
Cover
AuthorScott D. de Hart
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Subjects Percy Bysshe Shelley
Frankenstein
PublisherFeral House
Publication date
2013
Media typePrint (Paperback)
Pages183
ISBN 9781936239603

Shelley Unbound: Discovering Frankenstein's True Creator is a 2013 book by Scott D. de Hart, in which the author argues that the poet, dramatist, essayist, and Gothic horror novelist Percy Bysshe Shelley, not his wife Mary Shelley, is the actual author of Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). An alternate title of the book is Shelley Unbound: Uncovering Frankenstein's True Creator.

Percy Bysshe Shelley English Romantic poet

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets, who is regarded by some as among the finest lyric and philosophical poets in the English language, and one of the most influential. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not see fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achievements in poetry grew steadily following his death. Shelley was a key member of a close circle of visionary poets and writers that included Lord Byron, Leigh Hunt, Thomas Love Peacock, and his own second wife, Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein.

Mary Shelley English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin, and her mother was the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft.

Contents

Summary

Hart argues that Percy Bysshe Shelley, not his wife Mary Shelley, is the author of Frankenstein (1818). Percy Bysshe Shelley did not want his authorship of Frankenstein to be known to the public, so he attributed authorship to Mary Shelley, who was 18 years old when the novel was begun. Hart focused on the inconsistencies, inaccuracies, and outright contradictions in the 1818 preface, written by Percy Bysshe Shelley, and the 1831 introduction written by Mary Shelley. This comparison and analysis purports to show that both Shelley and Mary conspired to maintain a "hoax" that she was the sole author of Frankenstein. But Mary's admission in 1831 that Shelley, in fact, wrote the 1818 Preface, usually written by the author of a novel, not her, and the subsequent examination of the original manuscripts and final drafts proved to Hart that a hoax had been perpetrated.

Reception

Leslie S. Klinger, in The New Annotated Frankenstein (2017), wrote that "much nonsense has been written" in support of the notion that Frankenstein was written by Percy Shelley, and that while de Hart's book was "otherwise thoughtful", ultimately its conclusions on this topic deserved "little credence". [1]

Leslie S. Klinger is an American attorney and writer. He is a noted literary editor and annotator of classic genre fiction, including the Sherlock Holmes stories and the novels Dracula and Frankenstein as well as Neil Gaiman's The Sandman comics, Alan Moore's and Dave Gibbons's Watchmen graphic novel, and the stories of H. P. Lovecraft.

Duncan Wu discussed the book in his 30 Great Myths about the Romantics calling it "wishful and credulous" and saying that it "drifts into X-Files territory". [2]

Duncan Wu British academic and biographer

Duncan Wu is a British academic and biographer.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Klinger, Leslie S., editor. The New Annotated Frankenstein. p. lxvii. New York: Liveright, 2017.
  2. ↑ Wu, Duncan. 30 Great Myths about the Romantics. Chichester, UK: John Wiley and Sons, 2015, page 215-216.
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