The True Mad Scientist
Mary Shelley
(By: Amir, 4th grade)
This article was written from Mary Shelley’s point of view in 1818. This author is most famed for writing Frankenstein published in spring of 1817.
Part One
Childhood and Switzerland
All I could recall of my vague days of childhood was what my father told me, mostly. I was born in London, in the district that most people referred to as Somers Town. Sadly, I was left with no recollection of my mother because she passed away ten days after I was born. Fanny Inlay, my half-sister and I were pampered by Louisa Jones, our housekeeper until my father found a new wife and said firmly that we no longer needed her services. From then on I thought he was mad and my theory grew when he brought that loathsome creature named Mary Jane Clarmont in to our beloved household.
I then felt like a princess, but not in a good way. I was and have been always a writer and my gruesome memories of that Victorian lady tell me she would intrude on my privacy and my thoughts. After she had committed that crime she would demand something right away from a cup of tea severed with bread and butter to having the floors all swept up. Her command would always begin, “My dear Mary,” Well I wasn’t dear to her at all! She disliked me, period. But I suppose little things like that should be forgotten and I moved on in life.
Part Two
Frankenstein
About two decades after that I accompanied Percy, my husband, my son William (named after my father) Lord Byron for a vacationing in Switzerland. Unfortunately we spent most of the time inside, due to the weather. One of these terrible stormy nights, we were in the parlor and there we set two bets. The men were saying:
“In writing, you can’t make a hero who is not handsome!”
I spoke in the tone of voice my father had used when he fired Louisa Jones and said,
“Yes you can!”
But by that time Lord Byron had already taken a book of ghost stories down from the shelf and started reading from it. Those stories made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up straight. After Lord Byron had read a few stories I suggested having a ghost story contest. Lord Byron and Percy said they would think about it “when they were fresh” but that meant they were going to participate.
Asleep on my pillow I had what I call a “walking dream” simply put, a nightmare. With my head up, I was walking down a narrow corridor of what seemed to be a giant science lab. On the doors were bronze plates that told you of the scientist that worked in that room. Only one door was opened. I paused to see this spectacle. A scientist with a vile grimace on his face as he bent over to give life to an ugly figure that resembled Mary Jane Clarmont.
All the sudden, the expression on the monsters face changed. I gave a small whimper. Then, it jumped to its feet and with its hands hanging limply in front of him started to walk toward me…
I then woke. With the idea still in mind I grabbed the nearest notebook and pen and began writing Frankenstein. The book was completed last spring and I was proud for it had proved both of the bets that Percy and Lord Byron made that night were false.
“Mom! Dinner is ready!”
“Coming William! I’ll have to find time to write later.”
Blowing out the candle, Mary Shelley left her desk.
Several months following the publication of Frankenstein Percy, Mary
Shelley’s husband drowned himself in a river. Mary Shelley, now a depressed widow died at 53 from a brain tumor. But yet she is immortal for she and Frankenstein have stood the test of time.