Review by Booklist Review
Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, Frankenstein, is one of the best-known books in history, but many do not know that the lives of its author and those around her were equally as dramatic and tragic as those of the characters in her tale. Mary was the daughter of two famous radical authors, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, who died just 11 days after giving birth to Mary. At only 16, Mary eloped with the charismatic and eccentric Percy Shelley, who was besotted with Mary but already wed to another woman, by whom he had two children. Mary and Percy brought Mary's stepsister, Claire Claremont, with them, and she not only had an affair with Percy but also pursued Lord Byron, a poet as famous for his stunning good looks as for his verse. This group, along with Byron's emotionally fragile physician, John Polidori, gathered together for a summer in Switzerland, where a challenge Byron threw out inspired Mary to write Frankenstein. Though the novel went on to meet with great success, the lives of all the authors would be touched by great tragedy in the following years. The lives of the writers were every bit as exciting as those of the characters they created, and the Hooblers recount the ups and downs in the lives of these Romantic-era geniuses with thrilling, intense prose. As exciting and fast paced as a good novel, this book is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in literary genius and the lives of people gifted with it. --Kristine Huntley Copyright 2006 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this absorbing biography, the Hooblers, historians and children's authors (The American Family Albums), chronicle the turbulent life of Mary Shelley (1797-1851), author of the classic gothic novel, Frankenstein. They open with a moving sketch of the life of her famous mother, feminist rebel writer Mary Wollstonecraft, who died 11 days after giving birth to Mary. Sixteen-year-old Mary eloped to France, in 1814, with the freethinking Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Effectively surrounded by egotistical and rapacious "monsters" such as Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, a new mother at 19, penned the tale of Frankenstein in response to a challenge set by Byron to guests at his Swiss villa. The Hooblers amply relate how the themes of Mary Shelley's masterpiece correspond to her life. Portraying Mary Shelley's stoic endurance of trauma and loss- two of her children died early-the Hooblers describe her final misery when Percy Shelley drowned while she was still in her early 20s. Summarizing Mary's other novels and recounting how she championed Shelley's posthumous literary reputation while raising her remaining son to conventional manhood, the Hooblers' well-crafted biography will appeal to all who wish to learn more about the conception of Frankenstein and its enigmatic author. 8 pages of b&w photos. (May 22) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
"I cannot live without loving and being loved-without sympathy-if this is denied to me I must die." Mary Shelley recorded this entry in her journal five years after the death of her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley. This statement echoes the lament of the monster in her novel, Frankenstein, "I was wretched, helpless and alone," leading the Hooblers ("The American Family Albums" series) to establish a connection between the author and the monster she created. "Mary knew its feelings well," they argue, "for its life story parallels her own." Although the creation of Frankenstein has been well documented, the Hooblers vividly and effectively set the scene for Lord Byron's challenge to Shelley and other group members to write a ghost story as a contest. They sympathetically portray Shelley and her yearning for love, her writing, her turbulent family life, and her loyalty to her husband's memory. Although the focus is on Shelley herself, those to whom she was close-including her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft; her father, William Godwin; and her husband-all make appearances, as do other characters central to that drama, among them Lord Byron, Claire Clairmont, and John Polidori. Excerpts from the letters and journals of each of these figures are used to substantiate and extend the narrative. The prose is informal and occasionally satiric. Recommended for public and academic libraries.-Kathryn R. Bartelt, Univ. of Evansville, ID (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Better known as children's authors (In Darkness, Death, 2004, etc.), the Hooblers address the adult market with a biography of Frankenstein creator Mary Shelley based on a very shaky premise. Shelley's famous novel somehow cursed the lives of George Gordon, Lord Byron and his four guests at Villa Diodati on the night when Byron proposed the celebrated ghost story competition, the authors declare. "A dark star hung over all [those] brilliant young people," they ominously intone. Within a decade of that summer evening in 1816, Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley lost several babies, then Percy drowned; Mary's stepsister Claire Clairmont gave birth to Byron's child, who died at age five; Byron himself was dead before he turned 40; and his friend John Polidori, fifth at the villa, was a probable suicide at 25. They may well have deserved their fates, according to the Hooblers' highly colored rendering, which depicts everyone involved in Mary's life as "monsters" in some vague metaphorical sense. Much of what the authors assert is unremarkable. In the early 19th century, children often died young, as did adults. People then--and now--were unfaithful to their spouses, became unhappy and killed themselves, possessed character flaws. In other words, those in the Shelley circle were no more cursed or monstrous than the rest of humanity. The Hooblers further strain their biography's already over-contrived reliance on Mary's novel by arguing that she became, in effect, Victor Frankenstein when she devoted herself to reviving her dead husband by publishing his complete poems and burnishing his tarnished reputation. This requires the authors to give very scant attention to Mary's considerable post-Frankenstein production of novels, stories and nonfiction. Its thin thesis notwithstanding, the volume does reveal that the Hooblers have read the standard biographies of the principals as well as their published correspondence, journals and diaries. Only the newest arrivals to Shelley-land will discover any novelty here. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
