Description
The spark of life was only the beginning.
Whilst popular culture remembered the lightning flash and the stitched-together creature, Frankenstein remained one of the most searching meditations on science, loneliness, and what it means to be human. Remarkably, Mary Shelley was still a teenager when she wrote it.
From the icy wastes of the Arctic in Frankenstein to the uncanny resurrections and transformations of her shorter fiction, this online event celebrated the enduring imagination of the so-called “Mother of Science Fiction.” Professor Sharon Ruston explored the story of Frankenstein’s creature alongside Mary Shelley’s lesser-known tales.
She showed how stories such as On Ghosts, Roger Dodsworth: The Reanimated Englishman, Valerius: The Reanimated Roman, and Transformation continued to reveal Shelley’s lifelong fascination with animation, identity, and the boundaries between life and death.
“It was absolutely superb – very informative and delivered with authority.” Visitor to a previous online event.
Part of our Short Stories Season – The Gothic.
Recorded October 2026.
On purchase, you will be sent a link to this talk. Please note, due to the file size it may take a few minutes for the talk to load.
Celebrating the life and literature of Elizabeth Gaskell, Manchester’s most famous Victorian writer. A restored Victorian middle-class house in the heart of a UNESCO City of Literature.
House, Garden and Tea Room open every Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday 11am-4.30pm (last entry 3pm). Second-hand books also on sale from the House.
Pre-booking advised via the website.
Please note we are not able to ship outside of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland.
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