Happy Birthday to Mary Shelley

Born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, creator of “Frankenstein,” wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley, on the anniversary of her birth on August 30, 1797, I thought today would be a good day to mention there are no less than eight new dramatic adaptations of her novel in the works, one is even a television series.  Some sound more promising than others. Guillermo del Toro and Tim Burton are two big names involved each with his own project. Burton is apparently doing a stop-motion update of his 1984 “Frankenweenie.” Let’s think good thoughts.

Mary also gave us “The Last Man” in 1826, which as far as I know was the first apocalyptic novel, in which the world is wiped out by a plague. Shelley claimed as the basis for the story that she discovered prophecies of the Cumaean Sibyl painted on leaves in a cave near Naples. The story is set at the end of the 21st century. I sure hope it’s not prophetic.

It certainly would be interesting to get Mary Shelley together with other female science fiction writers of our own time: Ursula K. Le Guin, Joanna Russ, Alice B. Sheldon (aka James Tiptree, Jr.), Anne McCaffrey, etc. What a dinner party that would be.

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