Weekly Writing Prompt #28
I love movies based on books but I also love movies based on the authors of those books. One of my 'to watch' movies right now is Mary Shelley.
When Shelley (then Godwin) was 18, she had a dream that changed her life. It was in 1816, during a rainy holiday in Lake Geneva, Switzerland, with poets Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley (her future husband) and the physician John Polidori. Shelley and the group entertained themselves by reading from a book of German ghost stories. Afterwards, Byron set a challenge; they would each write their own ghost stories and vote for the winner. Shelley based hers on a dream.
“I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion.”
Byron described her story as 'a wonderful work for a girl' (urgh!) and she decided to turn it into a novel. It was considered such a masculine novel that when published anonymously in 1818 (as was common for works written by women), many people attributed it to her husband. Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, was an instant hit. It is now one of the most popular gothic novels of all time and it was written by a teenager.
This week's prompt is a quote from the very book that sparked an entirely new genre; science fiction.
