As horror fans know, Frankenstein's monster wasn't really born by a flash of lightning, but rather in the mind of Mary Shelley during a dreary vacation on the mountainside above Geneva. In the summer of 1816, when a volcanic ash cloud unexpectedly obscured the sun, she and her friends, including notorious "bad boy" poets Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, competed to tell horrific stories that led to inspired.

But a new collection of the young writer's personal diaries, published in March, provides strong evidence that although the sojourn in the Alps set a grim tone for her novels, her imagination was marred by something personal, Things ignited closer to home.

Shelley's diaries, letters and short stories from this period, published together for the first time, reveal that the shadow hanging over the plot of Frankenstein was the mysterious suicide of her half-sister Fanny Imlay. Poet and Shelley scholar Fiona Sampson, who writes the foreword to a new collection of poems from Manderley Press, is convinced that there is a secret shame behind this sad death and adds to the novel's color. She also believed she had uncovered a false alibi that gave away the truth.

The author, then still known as Mary Godwin, returned from Switzerland later that year and lived in Bath with her notorious married lover Shelley and their young children. "They wanted a secluded place to live and they were actually in the center of what we call Jane Austen's Bath, a place of high-class gossip," Sampson told the outlet. observer.

Tragedy soon befell them, and more than once. First, in November, Percy's abandoned 21-year-old wife Harriet committed suicide in London's Serpentine Lake. Then, more importantly for the writer, her sister Fanny (the first child of her illustrious mother Mary Wollstonecraft and the American diplomat Gilbert Imlay) was also at Swann He committed suicide in a hotel room in the West, apparently inexplicably.

Sampson found the original news report of the discovery of the unnamed body in the magazine's archived pages. Cambrian Era When she researched the 2018 biography, Looking for Mary Shelley. Clues to the body's identity include lingerie signed by the late mother Wollstonecraft and a gentleman's silk handkerchief. However, the key question for Sampson is why Imlay traveled to Swansea via Bath rather than directly from London.

"The coach station was next to the Abbey Churchyard, where Shelley and her sister lived. But her diary on the day she arrived at Bathmary created an alibi," Sampson said. "When you interpret her diary, which was clearly written for public consumption due to her own literary ambitions and her mother's fame, she specifically says that she and Percy walked to South Parade to take a painting class, which she usually Things that won’t be done are mentioned.”

Sampson suspects the family showdown may have been sparked by Imlay's feelings for the poet her sister also loved, now a free man. "We can assume that she met Percy that day as he set off for Swansea immediately after hearing the news of her death. There is plenty of evidence that Fanny spoke to one of them. There are also hints that she had a crush on Percy "Perhaps this is the final rejection." Sampson now hears Imlay's mournful voice, often described as "plain" in Frankenstein's creature's lament: "I am alone and miserable." Only such ugly people will love me.”

Rebeka Russell, the publisher of the new collection, wanted to focus on Shelley's time in Bath. "Mary's literary reputation has been overshadowed by this monster, by her husband, who was indeed a bit of a scoundrel, not to mention her mother's great name, of course. But as sister, companion, mother and reviled 'other woman" who had so many responsibilities. This series captures her extraordinary life."

These two tragedies changed the understanding of the subject matter of Frankenstein, which is now set to become a Netflix film starring saltburnJacob Elordi stars as the monster and is directed by Guillermo del Toro. It is often read as a warning about the dangers of science, but as the daughter of Wollstonecraft, Britain's most famous early advocate of women's rights, Shelley worried about the effects of motherhood and the responsibilities of reproduction. After all, her mother did not survive her birth and died in 1797.

Maureen Lennon, the playwright of a new musical about Wollstonecraft and Shelley, agrees that the two women's main concern was the restrictions placed on women. "Fanny has such a tragic story," said Lennon, whose mary and the hyena It opens in Hull next month before taking place at London's Wilton Hall. “When Fanny was born, Wollstonecraft wrote a wonderful essay about how scared she felt when she looked at her child. She said she wanted to be principled and strong, but also Happiness. She worries about having to sacrifice one of her goals."

Her show, produced by the Pilot Theater and Hull Truck Theater and featuring songs by musician Billy Nomates (aka Tor Maries), will tell the story of Wollstonecraft's adventurous career and be inspired by the people she never knew she was most famous for. Inspired by the ideas of Mary Shelley as a child. . "I wanted to do a show about how we raise girls and young women because a lot of what Wollstonecraft wrote still feels very contemporary," Lennon said.