Dorothy & Thomas Hoobler The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein

The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein

Dorothy & Frank Hoobler

Little, Brown, May 2006, $24.95

ISBN: 0316000787

This fabulous biography of Mary Shelly contains a fascinating but not proven seemingly invalid premise that grips readers like this reviewer who saw it coming and still kept reading. The Hooblers argue eloquently that those who were at the Swiss villa where Frankenstein was written all were cursed with death in a short period afterward; anecdotal evidence seems to support their captivating premise, but this seems similar to the proof that computers found a hidden code in the bible (computers also proved likewise in the Constitution). Still this argument adds to a delightful look at Mary Shelley, whose famous mother started the feminist movement in the late eighteenth century but died eleven days after Mary's birth. As a teen Mary married romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and was a mother by nineteen. The authors claim she is Victor surrounded by arrogant artistic human monsters so when she accepted Byron's challenge she used her real life of acceptance of them and that death is the outcome of life as the themes of her masterpiece. Interesting biography due to the assertions made by the authors.

Harriet Klausner