Episode 1
Mary Shelley is born into a world of romantic poetry and scientific experiment and is soon exposed to some of the most interesting minds of her generation.
Mary Shelley was brought up by her father in a house filled with radical thinkers, poets, philosophers and writers of the day. Aged 16, she eloped with Percy Bysshe Shelley, embarking on a relationship that was lived on the move across Britain and Europe. She coped with debt, infidelity and the deaths of three children, before early widowhood changed her life forever. Most astonishingly, it was while still a teenager that she composed her novel Frankenstein, creating two of our most enduring archetypes today.
The life story is well-known. But who was the woman who lived it?
Mary Shelley left plenty of evidence and, in this fascinating dialogue with the past, Fiona Sampson sifts through letters, diaries and records to find the real woman behind the story. She uncovers a complex, generous character - friend, intellectual, lover and mother - trying to fulfil her own passionate commitment to writing at a time when to be a woman writer was an extraordinary and costly anomaly.
Coinciding with the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein, this is a major new work of biography by a prize-winning writer and poet.
Written by Fiona Sampson
Read by Stella Gonet
Abridged by Polly Coles
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for 成人快手 Radio 4.
Last on
More episodes
Previous
You are at the first episode
Credits
Role | Contributor |
---|---|
Reader | Stella Gonet |
Author | Fiona Sampson |
Abridger | Polly Coles |
Producer | Clive Brill |
Broadcasts
- Mon 15 Jan 2018 09:45成人快手 Radio 4 FM
- Tue 16 Jan 2018 00:30成人快手 Radio 4
Opening Lines
Sample our books and authors Clip Collection
Interviews, previews and reviews
Subscribe to the Short stories podcast
Featuring the best stories from the UK's finest writers
How many of these 100 Novels have you read?
成人快手 Arts: Books
Celebrating reading and the 100 novels that have shaped our world.