Episode 202 - Mary Shelley the Woman Behind the Monster Part 1
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This year's Beyond the Grave event honors Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, but who was the woman behind the iconic novel? Born to radical parents Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, Mary Shelley navigated a life of intellectual fervor, passionate relationships – including her tumultuous marriage to Percy Bysshe Shelley – and literary friendship with none other than the bad boy of English literature, Lord Byron. Yet, her life was also marked by profound loss, evident in her frequent visits to her mother's grave, a sanctuary where she sought solace and inspiration as a child and young woman.
Professor Jared Richman, English Literature Professor at Colorado College, joins Jennie and Dianne to explore how these influences shaped Mary's masterpiece. Tune in to Part 1 as they dive into the Ordinary Extraordinary story of how a teenaged Mary Shelley forged a timeless classic.
Watch this episode on YouTube!
https://youtu.be/BKxnYsfBuOE?si=Wo8Wk0ebPMlvhTur
Tickets for the 4th annual Beyond the Grave: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein at Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs, Colorado can be purchased here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/beyond-the-grave-mary-shelleys-frankenstein-tickets-986081605627
Professor
Jared Richman received his MA from the University of York (UK) and his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. His teaching and research center on the literature and culture of Britain's Long Eighteenth Century (1660-1832). He teaches courses on disability, satire, British Romanticism, radicalism, the Gothic tradition, Atlantic studies, and comics and graphic narrative. He has published on disability and poetic form, the works of William Blake, the fiction of Charlotte Smith and Mary Shelley, John Thelwall's elocutionary theories, and the poetry of Anna Seward. He is currently finishing a manuscript entitled "Transatlantic Realms": British Romanticism and the Idea of America, 1780-1832.