Frankenstein

Episode number 1 of Series “Nightmare: the birth of horror”.
In 1816 on the shores of Lake Geneva, 18 year old Mary Shelley (nee Godwin) would awake from a nightmare that provided the inspiration behind one of the classics of modern horror, “Frankenstein” or “The Modern Prometheus” - a tale of science and birthing. The origins of the nightmare were attributed to Mary’s past: the loss of her mother in childbirth, Mary’s own daughter years later, the philosophical writings of her father, new theories on the origins of life and demonstrations of galvanism. Writer, researcher and presenter Professor Christopher Frayling recounts the now legendary incident in which Mary Shelley, along with husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron and three others, sat around a fireside and recounted a tale of terror to horrify one another. The literary influences on Mary’s writing are outlined, as is the journey from the original novel of the birth of a beautiful creature to the fiendish monster he has since become.