>> Guy Lamolinara: Good
evening everyone, and thank you
for attending our
book event tonight.
I'm Guy Lamolinara, and I'm from
the Center for the Book here
in the Library of Congress.
And, this event is
part of a week's worth
of events we're doing,
related to Frankenstein.
We're having film screenings,
we have a display of items
from the library's collection
over in the Jefferson Building,
and all of these are meant to
celebrate the 200th anniversary
of Mary Shelley's
novel, Frankenstein,
and its extraordinary global
influence on popular culture.
It's now my pleasure to
introduce our program.
Charlotte Gordon is an
award-winning author,
whose work has appeared
in the New York Times,
the Wall Street Journal,
and the Washington Post,
among many other publications.
Her latest book, Romantic
Outlaws: the extraordinary lives
of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary
Shelley won the National Book
Critics Circle award.
Charlotte has also
published Mistress Bradstreet:
the untold story of America's
first poet, and The Woman
Who Named God, Abraham's
Dilemma,
and The Birth of Three Faiths.
Most recently, Charlotte
wrote the introduction
to Penguin's reissue of
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
A distinguished professor of the
humanities at Endicott College,
Gordon speaks frequently at
colleges and conferences,
has been interviewed on numerous
NPR programs across the country.
Charlotte's distinguished
interviewer is Michael Dirda.
Michael is a Pulitzer
Prize-winning book columnist
for the Washington Post,
and the author most recently
of Browsings: a year
of reading, collecting,
and living with books.
His other publications include
several collections of essays,
the memoir An Open Book,
and the Edgar award-winning
On Conan Doyle.
In another life, Michael earned
a PhD in comparative literature
from Cornell University,
with a concentration
on medieval studies and
European Romanticism.
He is currently at work on
the great age of storytelling,
an appreciation of late 19th
and early 20th century
popular fiction.
Please welcome Charlotte
Gordon and Michael Dirda.
[ Applause ]
>> Michael Dirda:
Well, Charlotte
and I spoke beforehand,
and she's going
to give a short presentation,
based on her study
of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary
Shelley, and then we'll kind
of watch and do a
casual conversation
about both what she said, and
these two interesting women.
But, also about Frankenstein.
I urge you to think of
questions to ask us.
It's always much more
fun, particularly
when you have a relatively
small group,
to interact with the audience.
So, you know, think
about the novel,
think about the things you'd
like to know about Mary Shelley,
or Mary Wollstonecraft,
or Frankenstein.
>> Charlotte Gordon: So,
when I was a young teacher,
I used to always teach
Frankenstein, and, you know,
honestly I knew nothing
about it other than, like,
all the cliches that
Frankenstein--
you know, the first
science fiction novel.
And, you know, Mary
Shelley, whatever.
I knew about her,
but not really.
And so, it was with great
surprise that I found out that
in fact, Mary Shelley was the
daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft.
I'm a highly educated
individual,
so how did this slipped my--
you know, my teacher's mind,
and mind, is beyond me.
So, in this image, I just wanted
people to see these images.
The picture of the woman in
white is Mary Wollstonecraft.
And, in this picture,
she's actually pregnant
with Mary Shelley, who is in
the black, looking kind of tired
at this point in her life,
because she's been
through a lot.
When I found out that
Wollstonecraft was the mother
of Mary Shelley, I thought
that was so interesting.
And, I thought, well, of
course, cool, radical woman
who wrote A Vindication of the
Rights of Woman, of course,
she's going to be the daughter
of cool, radical Mary Shelley
who wrote Frankenstein.
She must have influenced her
so much, because I knew nothing
about Mary Wollstonecraft.
I did not know that 10
days after she gave birth
to Mary Shelley, Mary
Wollstonecraft died.
My theory went right
out the window.
I thought, wait, how does cool,
radical author of A Vindication
of the Rights of Woman influence
cool writer of Frankenstein?
And then, I thought
about myself,
the fact that I was even
asking these questions--
I mean, I'm profoundly
influenced by dead people,
so is Michael, by the way.
Of course--
>> Michael Dirda: I sees them.
>> Charlotte Gordon: [laughs]
Of course little Mary was going
to influenced by her mother,
and in fact, that portrait
that I just showed you
of Mary Wollstonecraft
in the white dress, hung in
little Mary Shelley's house,
and lots of other
interesting things as well.
But, I wanted to quickly give
you a kind of overview of things
that a lot of things that people
don't know about the novel.
And, in some ways, we could
call this little introduction
Frankenstein's Grandmother.
Because, really, Frankenstein,
when I came to think about it,
and I came to read about
these women, in many ways,
Frankenstein is a tribute
to Mary Wollstonecraft.
And, whenever I say that to my
students they say, but wait,
there's no strong
women in this novel.
It seems to be all
about, you know--
it's dystopian, and the
only person who seems
to have any power at all
is Doctor Frankenstein.
How could this be a-- what
we would say in academia,
how could this be a
proto-feminist novel?
How could this be a novel about
the need for strong women?
And, what I came to understand
is that really, Frankenstein is
in fact a story about
what the world would look
like without mothers.
Without strong women.
That it is a dystopian
picture of a world
where women don't have power,
and are effectively
disenfranchised.
And so, this interested
me-- when I realized this,
this interested me all the
more in Mary Wollstonecraft.
So, I'm going to just flip
through some quick images
so that we can have a
sense of who she is,
because this will put
us all on the same--
you know, a level playing field.
So, I went on a kind of
pilgrimage to find out more
about Mary Wollstonecraft,
long before I knew I was going
to write about her in my
book, Romantic Outlaws.
And, this is a picture of the
house we think that she grew
up in, in northern
England, in Yorkshire.
And, because I'm a writer, of
course I had to have a picture
of the window we think
she stared out of
when she was super glum and
depressed, when she was 16.
Why was she glum and depressed?
She had a horrible family.
Her father was an alcoholic.
Her mother was very weak,
and Mary's earliest memories
actually are of falling asleep
on the threshold of her
parent's bedroom door
to protect her mother
from her abusive father.
And, all of that happened in
this house that we see here.
For the rest of her life,
she would be anti-marriage,
and she's an 18th century
woman, and to be married
in the 18th century meant--
and none of my students ever
know this, so forgive me
if I'm telling you-- you look
like you already know all this,
but I still have to say it.
You couldn't own property.
Children were not your own.
There was no such
thing as divorce.
It took quite literally an act
of Parliament to get divorced.
Your husband's responsibility
was to discipline you.
Which meant, essentially,
that he could punish you,
what we would call
abuse, abuse you freely.
Why? Because an out-of-order
family meant an out-of-order
or uncontrolled town, which
meant an out of control,
you know, wild county.
Which meant the whole country
would be wild and uncontrolled,
and England would turn
into France, and you know,
who knew what would happen?
A revolution, maybe.
So, the great humane innovation
of the 18th century was
that husbands should
not use a whip
that was thicker than the thumb.
And, that's where we get the
idea of the rule of thumb.
Mary Wollstonecraft
was outraged by this.
And, she spent essentially
the rest of her life,
after this early
experience with her parents,
trying to right the injustices
that she saw growing up.
But first, she was
really depressed.
And then, a very beloved
mentor said, you know,
I think you should read this
person named John Locke.
I think you'll find him
really inspirational.
And, whenever I say John
Locke to my students,
their eyes roll back in
their head with boredom.
And, I have to remind them, that
in fact in the 18th century,
John Locke was considered
so radical
that he wasn't even allowed
on the campus at Oxford.
I mean, he was really a
shocking person to read.
And, in 1775, which
is the very same year
that Mary Wollstonecraft
was reading John Locke,
so was John Adams.
So was Jefferson.
He was, in fact, literally
inspiring revolutions.
And, for Wollstonecraft,
he inspired her to think
that women, in fact, could have
the same [gasps] rights as men.
And so, I thought that it
would be interesting just
to hear Locke's words
for one second,
because we're a small,
nerdy group in here.
I feel that you can
stand it, right?
So, Locke said, "the state of
nature is one of equality".
I feel like we should all-- "of
equality, wherein all the power
and jurisdiction is reciprocal.
No one having more
than another."
When Wollstonecraft read that in
1775, she had found a political
and philosophical
underpinning for her feelings
that life wasn't fair.
Her father should not be allowed
to treat her mother that way.
And, in fact, Mary had an older
brother who was tyrannical,
and he should not be allowed
to treat her that way, either.
She-- we're going
to skip through some
of these fascinating images.
Lots of interesting things
happened in her life,
many of which are actually, from
my point of view, very funny.
But, by the time she's 31,
she's tried out all the
different things that you can do
as the woman if you
don't get married.
Because she is against marriage.
So, what are the options for
you in the mid-18th century?
Well, if you didn't want
to sink down the food chain
to become a prostitute,
you can be a governess.
Fun. There's many funny
stories about Wollstonecraft
as a governess, however.
The idea of hiring
Mary Wollstonecraft
as a governess still
amuses me, but anyway.
Wollstonecraft was a governess.
She was a companion to an
elderly woman, who had a history
of intimidating her companions,
but not when it came
to Wollstonecraft.
She was scared of
Wollstonecraft,
which I think tells us a
lot about Wollstonecraft.
She started a school that was
so radical no one would
send their students there.
Like, all classic
Wollstonecraft.
By the time she's 31, this
is how she presents herself
to the world.
And, if you know other portraits
of women during this time,
they're often holding, like,
little frilly parasols,
and like, you know, trying to
look marriageable and pretty.
And, this picture is a definite
self-representation of self
as scholar or, in my
mind, as prime minister.
She's really, this is an anti--
well, I don't want to use the
words feminine and masculine,
but this is very much
conscious depiction of self
as serious-minded individual.
She does not want to
be seen as a woman
in the 18th century sense.
She's not anti-woman, but she
is anti the images of women
that people had in
the 18th century.
She comes to fame by
writing A Vindication
of the Rights of Woman.
And, when she wrote A
Vindication of the Rights
of Woman, no one said to
her, gee, thanks so much
for writing A Vindication
of the Rights of Woman.
They said, you are a
whore, Mary Wollstonecraft.
You are a hyena in petticoats.
But, she persevered.
And, I will speed up our life
story just a little bit more.
But, she-- the French Revolution
breaks out, and Wollstonecraft,
as opposed to the rest of
the English were fleeing home
from Paris, Wollstonecraft
gets on the first ship she can,
to go become the first
female war correspondent
in Paris, which she loves.
When she gets to France, there's
a lot of violence, as we know.
She arrives just as the king
is about to be executed.
He gets executed.
She doesn't really like
all this bloodshed,
but she's totally
behind the revolution.
It was like, yes, this
is how life should be.
Rich people should
be on the run.
Poor people should be rising up.
Women should be able
to get divorced.
They should have equal rights.
This is great.
She falls in love with a
sexy American named Gilbert.
She gets pregnant.
They have a baby.
Life is great.
She's living her philosophy.
He doesn't believe in
marriage either, which is kind
of an enforced servitude
of women, he says.
This is terrific.
And then, he leaves her.
She's got this little baby.
She's super depressed.
What is she going to do?
She goes and tracks him down.
He's living with an "actress."
She says to them, you know,
how about the three
of us live together?
Then, you and I, Gilbert,
can talk about ideas,
and be philosophical soul
mates, and you, young woman,
do you have an education?
And, what are you going to
do when he gets tired of you?
How are you going
to earn a living?
The young woman is like,
get out of my life.
You may not live with us.
Go away. So, Mary
gets super depressed.
Sad things happen.
She tries to kill herself.
Gilbert in all of his
wisdom says to her, listen,
one of my merchant
ships-- stay with me here--
has gone missing in Scandinavia.
I'm wondering if you could go
find it for me, and then, maybe,
you know, maybe we
could get back together
if you find this ship.
Scandinavia?
Merchant ship?
Nobody in this time
period went to Scandinavia.
Men did not go to Scandinavia.
But, the suicidal
Mary Wollstonecraft
with her toddler go to
Sweden, where in fact,
she roams around in the
beautiful Scandinavian summer,
you know, smelling the pines,
and picking strawberries,
and admiring waterfalls.
And, at night she comes
home, and she writes
about how much better
nature is making her feel.
And, when she comes back
to England, Gilbert's like,
well you didn't find my ship--
she didn't find his ship--
I'm going to go on living
with my cute actress.
She gets depressed, but
you know what she does?
She revises all of her writings
that she did in Scandinavia,
and she publishes a book that
most people have never heard
of today, but was actually her
best-selling book of the time,
called Letters from Scandinavia.
And, in Letters from
Scandinavia,
she writes about the
healing properties of nature
and how it gives
her inspiration.
And, it's read by two young men.
One was named William
Wordsworth.
And, one was named Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, and they said, wow.
This is a really
great way to write.
Maybe we should try it.
They greatly admired her.
I was certainly never taught
that Wollstonecraft was
in fact one of the
initiators of Romanticism.
But, both Wordsworth
and Coleridge,
if they were here tonight would
say, in fact, we got a lot
of our ideas from
Mary Wollstonecraft.
Mary Wollstonecraft meets,
a kind of rock star political
philosopher named William
Godwin, who read Letters from
Scandinavia, and said, you know,
if ever there were
a book calculated
to make the reader fall in love
with the author, it's this book.
They get together.
She gets pregnant again.
Big quandary.
What are we going to do?
Neither of them believe
in marriage.
They've both written
publicly about this.
If they get married,
they're going
to be ridiculed by
their friends.
But, if they don't get married,
this little baby's
going to be a bastard.
What should they do?
And, if they do get-- what about
little Fan-- They get married.
Their friends make fun of them.
I want to show-- there she is.
She's pregnant with the baby.
They move to that great
neighborhood in The Polygon,
which has since been torn
down, and is now North London.
They get married in
Saint Pancras Old Church,
which is right near Saint
Pancras railroad station.
And, everything,
again, is great,
though their friends
have made fun of them.
Mary gives birth.
It's a little girl,
her name is Mary.
Everyone's worried that the
little girl won't survive,
but seems to be OK.
And then, the tragedy happens.
Mary Wollstonecraft
dies of childbed fever,
just 10 days after giving birth.
And, in fact, William
Godwin is heartbroken.
So that, little Mary
Shelley's first memories
as a teeny little girl are
walking to the graveyard,
and actually learning to read
on her mother's gravestone.
And, this is true.
This is not apocryphal.
The first words that she learns
to trace, and the first letters,
are M-- you know, Mary
Wollstonecraft Godwin,
which was, in fact, little
Mary Shelley's original name,
Mary Godwin.
And, the gravestone--
you can't see it here--
the gravestone actually
said, Author of A Vindication
of the Rights of Woman.
So, I don't know about you guys.
I mean, my first words I
think were, like, dog and cat.
But, I think little
Mary Shelley's--
her first words were
vindication and woman.
Which, again, most people don't
know this, that this is part
of the origin story, of
course, of Frankenstein.
Which is why I'm
telling you all this.
Because I would much rather
be chatting with Michael.
But, I want us all to know this,
so that when our conversation
begins, you can know some
of these-- it's kind of
an invisible back story
to this really incredibly
famous novel.
So, by the time little
Mary has come of age,
even by the time she's 10 or
11, she's pretty much decided
that she wants to live according
to the ideals of her mother.
By the time she meets this
handsome young man, Percy,
she's 16, and he's 20.
And, inconveniently,
he's already married.
But, neither of them
believe in marriage.
No problem.
And so, she says to him, he does
not say to her, she says to him,
you know, my heart
is with you, Percy,
or whatever exactly she said.
He said, Great.
She says, you know, you're
already married, so we're going
to have to run away together.
He's like, fine.
Where should we go?
And, she says, well, Paris.
Because that's where
my mother went.
So, they do.
They run away together to Paris.
She's 16. I'm leaving
out an important
character, but that's OK.
And, what did they
take with them?
They don't take, you
know, sexy lingerie.
They take a giant stack of
Mary Wollstonecraft's books
that they read to each other.
So, I tell all of this to
you as a kind of back story,
so that you can understand that
by the time young Mary sits
down to write Frankenstein,
it's really only two years
after she's run away
with Percy to Paris.
They go to Geneva, and if you--
I think Michael and I can talk
about this-- but she starts
writing the ghost story
Frankenstein when she's
17ish, 18 years old,
and it's published
before she's 20.
And so, she says, I am
doing this in part to live
up to my mother and my father.
And so, I'm going
to leave it there,
but this is the back
story of Frankenstein
that most people don't know.
And, I wanted you
to know the history
of the women behind
Frankenstein.
Because it's kind of famously--
you know, women are so
famously absent from it.
And, I think now
Michael and I could talk.
But, I want to get the
picture of the house
where we think it was
actually begotten.
This is the Villa
Diodati in Geneva
where Lord Byron makes
his famous challenge,
which we can talk about
if you want to hear it.
>> Michael Dirda: Thank you.
That was great.
>> Charlotte Gordon:
You're welcome.
>> Michael Dirda: Well, I
wanted to ask a question
of the audience first.
I once taught Frankenstein
at a college course I gave.
And, I told the class that
I would give an A to anyone
in the class who could
tell me the first words
that the creature
speaks in the novel.
Not the--
>> Charlotte Gordon:
Look at the faces.
>> Michael Dirda: It's-- there
are three wonderful words.
"Pardon this intrusion."
Which tells you a lot
about the novel already,
if you have these images
of the movie in mind,
which is strictly
a horror movie.
>> Charlotte Gordon:
Oh, that's lovely.
>> Michael Dirda: Whereas
the novel is very much a
philosophical account of
all sorts of issues dealing
with science, creation, moral
responsibility, what it means
to be civilized, educated.
It's a book, you know,
it's a book to think with,
not just simply to react to.
But, let's go to the background
of how the book came about.
Charlotte's told us about
Mary Wollstonecraft,
and a bit about Mary Shelley.
Not Shelley yet,
still Mary Godwin.
She runs off with Shelley,
taking her half-sister
with her, Clair Clairmont.
And--
>> Charlotte Gordon: True.
>> Michael Dirda:
The whole situation
of the Romantics is so tangled--
>> Charlotte Gordon: [inaudible]
>> Michael Dirda: -- erotically.
Everybody-- it's like the '60s.
Everybody sleeps with
everybody else, practically.
They get involved
after they, you know--
Percy Shelley apparently
at one point
when Mary Shelley's had
a child that has died,
runs off with Claire
for a while.
Comes back.
They eventually all end
up at the Villa Diodati
on Lake Geneva with Lord Byron.
And, it's been a
terrible summer.
They called it-- because some
volcano erupted or something,
there was, you know,
terrible weather.
And, they decide to tell
these ghost stories.
Interestingly, they had
a visitor early in the--
that same period
when they were there.
Of-- a character named
Matthew Gregory Lewis.
Any of you know who
Matthew Gregory Lewis was?
>> [inaudible]
>> Charlotte Gordon: Yes.
>> Michael Dirda: He was the
author of the great Gothic novel
of the time, The Monk.
Which again, is filled with sex,
and all sorts of naughtiness.
So, these things
were in the air.
The characters are
interested in new ideas.
Electricity, and galvanism, and
there's-- they've got this--
they're living in the
middle of, you know,
the time of the Gothic romances.
And so, they decide that they're
going to tell ghost stories.
Why don't you tell us about what
ghost stories they came up with?
>> Charlotte Gordon: Well,
I think there's many interesting
stories about this story,
which is Lord Byron
says, famously,
and Mary tells us this
story in her introduction
to the revised Frankenstein.
So, if you're a critical
reader, you have to think
about the story she's telling,
and why she tells this story.
But, she says that Byron
set a challenge to everybody
who was there, to the
assembled, saying, essentially--
I'm translating now-- you know,
I'm sick of all the
books we're reading.
We all are.
We're bored.
Let's see who can write
the scariest ghost story.
And, Michael's going to
fill this in, but I'm going
to tell my part of it,
which is, the part I care
about because I teach students
who have many silly ideas
about this story, and it
comes from Mary herself.
So, the way she tells
it, Byron, and Shel--
everybody got right to work,
they had no difficulty.
But, she, Mary, struggled to
come up with an idea, alas.
But then, a dream came to her,
a dream vision, came to her.
And then, she was
able to write it down.
OK. She writes that many years
after everybody else has died.
And, by this time, people
know who wrote Frankenstein.
When it was first
published, it was anonymous.
And, most people thought it was
written by a man, perhaps Percy.
When they find out that it was
written by a woman, they say,
what kind of monstrous
woman would have come
up with this novel.
This is perverse, a perversity.
And so, Mary, who by this
time is a single mom,
living back in London,
trying to make a living,
has been exiled essentially
by London society for years,
for running away with
Percy and Claire.
Living, what the British press
called living in the midst
of the league of incest.
I know. I know.
Shocking.
>> Michael Dirda:
Shelley once said, Incest,
like so many other-- let's see--
incorrect things is a very
poetical circumstance.
[laughs]
>> Charlotte Gordon:
Dare I-- I know.
I love that.
His publisher's trying
to talk him
out of making his two main
characters, who are lovers,
brother and sister, as he says.
>> Michael Dirda: Hey, it
worked for [inaudible].
>> Charlotte Gordon:
Anyways, here's what we know
about what really happened.
Because, everybody
who was up there,
not only were they
sleeping with everybody,
they were also keeping
journals and writing letters.
And, there was one young man
up there who had a giant crush
on Mary, and recorded
her every action.
Polidori. And, in fact he
says she got right to work.
And, there's no evidence
of her having any
difficulty writing this book.
In fact, there's not even
evidence of the dream.
So, why does she
tell this story?
It seems clear that she
tells this story to kind
of make it more acceptable
to the reading audience
that this woman wrote this book.
I didn't mean to; it
came to me in a dream.
And, for those people who were
initiated, who knew anything
about Romantics,
only special people,
of course, had dreams like this.
So, on the other hand, it was
also a kind of-- what do we--
again, I've just
learned this phrase.
I think it's old now.
It's sort of a humble
brag to say, you know, oh,
I didn't have the idea
myself, it came in a vision.
It was a very Romantic
thing to happen.
But, it also excused
her on a very deep level
from being this monstrous
woman who came
up with this idea herself.
So, that's-- in all the
introductions to Frankenstein,
often that story is retold.
And, I find it irritating,
because I would like people
to understand that Shelly,
Mary-- Godwin at that point,
and then Mary Shelley
when she revises it,
took herself very seriously
as a craftsperson,
and worked very hard.
From the moment she started
writing that manuscript,
she didn't stop for two years.
And, we have the notebooks
of the second draft,
so we can see how hard she
worked and what she did.
So, I just have to correct that.
>> Michael Dirda: Yes, yes.
Polidori, by the way,
was the only other person
who really produced
any important work
of supernatural literature.
He wrote a book, a
novella, called The Vampyre.
Where the vampire is
essentially based on Byron.
In fact, when it was published,
people thought Byron
had written it.
And, it really set the ideal
of the vampire as a brooding,
elegant, intensely
sexy, romantic figure.
And, it goes all the up,
you know, to the present.
But, Polidori-- also,
these families are
intricately connected,
but Polidori's sister
became the mother
of Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
and the Rossetti family.
So, there were these
wonderful connections.
Claire Clairmont, we'll finish
up with her, was the only one
to live to any great length.
She lived to be a
great old lady.
Became a governess
for a long time.
>> Charlotte Gordon: [inaudible]
>> Michael Dirda: But,
she served as the model
for Henry James's great
story, The Aspern Papers.
So, a lot came out
of this small circle.
Now--
>> Charlotte Gordon: Can we say
one more thing about Claire?
>> Michael Dirda: Sure.
>> Charlotte Gordon: There
is a recent discovery,
which for people like us--
I'm including you in the
us-- was very exciting.
So, a lot of us have wondered,
how did people really feel
about the sexual
experimenting that was going on.
And, you know, Percy and
Byron, but especially Percy,
he used the phrase free love.
And, Mary was always trying
to live up to, you know,
his standards of free
love, and tried to sleep
with his friends and stuff.
But, she didn't really want to.
[laughs] So, we just found in
the public library in New York,
in between the pages of a
book, Claire Clairmont saying,
in fact, free love for
women was horrible.
It was a terrible
experience for us.
It was great for the men on
some level, but we suffered.
Now, having said that, she
was the model for James,
and she spent a lot of
time rewriting her history
and her letters.
So, this was a re-written--
who knows what the
mood of the day was.
But, still, I think
it's very interesting
that the woman's
experience of this kind
of "commune" was very
different from the men's.
Not that the men were having
such a great time
either, and-- by the way.
Did you know that, like, I feel
like it's like common knowledge
that Byron's main
erotic interest,
besides his half-sister and
other women, was actually men.
And, it seems very clear that
he had a very deep interest
in Percy.
And, I forget who it was in
England who was, you know,
bent out of shape that
I wrote that in my book.
[inaudible]
>> Michael Dirda: [laughs]
>> Charlotte Gordon: I know.
>> Michael Dirda: Well, there's
been-- his early travels,
he talks a lot about the Greek
and Arab boys that he would see.
Now, you stress the importance
of Mary Wollstonecraft,
but Mary Shelley dedicates
the book to her father--
>> Charlotte Gordon: Yes.
>> Michael Dirda:
-- William Godwin.
And, Godwin himself was
an extremely interesting--
both thinker, but also novelist.
Caleb Williams is one of the
earliest detective stories.
Sort of a chase thriller.
But, he also wrote a
couple of, sort of,
Gothic-y novels himself.
About the saint, Saint
Leon, or Saint Leon.
Saint Leon, about the search
for the elixir of life.
And, just to continue
with men a little bit,
Shelley also wrote a couple of,
sort of, crummy Gothic novels,
where you have gigantic
cretin men, or creatures.
And, Gothic elements like the
elixir of life, to extend life.
Why do you feel that
Mary Wollstonecraft was
so much an influence when we
have examples from the men
in her life working
the same field,
essentially, that she does?
>> Charlotte Gordon: I think
that they were a huge
influence on her as well.
I'm just trying to correct the
fact that most people don't know
that Wollstonecraft
was also an influence.
So, I think everything
you're saying is spot on.
And, in fact, I also think
Frankenstein can be read as part
of a kind of marital dispute
between Percy and Mary,
because Percy writes a long
poem called Prometheus Unbound.
And, of course, we know
that Frankenstein's subtitle
is A Modern Prometheus.
And so, this was part
of an ongoing quarrel
that they were having as
two very close people.
Between pessimism and optimism,
but also between many other
ideals about how to live a life.
And, I think in some
ways, it's self-evident,
that Doctor Frankenstein's
obsessive ambition
and commitment to
work at the expense
of his personal relationships,
I think Mary is saying not good.
Percy on the other
hand, admires it.
Like, he admires Prometheus,
and he's like, go, yes.
We can solve the
world's problems
through this kind of ambition.
And so, I think-- I'm so glad--
this is why it's so
great to have, you know,
the in tandem discussion
of Frankenstein,
because I'm so much
intent on kind
of correcting the
historical record
that has left Wollstonecraft
out,
that I will sometimes not
even mention the influence
of Godwin and Percy.
And, Godwin was a huge
influence for many, many reasons
that I can talk about
now, or not.
I don't know if there's
any interest.
>> Michael Dirda: Let me ask
you a question about the--
you brought up the
later introduction
to the 1831 text,
which she revised.
For a long time, that
was what people read.
>> Charlotte Gordon: Yes.
>> Michael Dirda: But, in
the last couple of decades,
the original, 1818 text,
has come to be preferred.
What happened?
What is different
between the two?
Why do we have this shift
from the later text?
For a long time, textual
scholars used to say,
you take the author's last
corrected version as the,
you know, the foundational text.
But, that's not the
case anymore--
>> Charlotte Gordon: No.
>> Michael Dirda: -- in
the case of Frankenstein.
Why not? What happened?
>> Charlotte Gordon: And, I
want to see if I can keep--
you all are so nice to be out
here tonight, I have to see
if I can keep you interested.
So-- because this could
get-- it can get arcane fast.
The 1818 edition, that's the one
that I just wrote the
introduction for at Penguin,
is the-- it's the first one.
It's less-- there's
less-- it's shorter.
It's one that Percy was
more directly involved in.
And, if you look at
the draft manuscript,
you can see in his
handwriting, his emendations,
which are very interesting
for us to see.
The 1831, she does-- of
course, Percy's long dead.
So is Byron.
And so, one of the reasons why
that was the edition
most people read is
that was seen as more Mary.
It was-- it has her revisions.
No one is working, you
know, on it with her.
And, the second wave
feminists in the '70s and '80s,
the text becomes
a little suspect.
Because the women seem to get
weaker, feminist theorists say.
It seems like it's becoming
a more-- one of the tropes,
one of the ideas
about Mary Shelley,
which is another
reason I wrote my book,
was that Mary Shelley
was seen as starting life
as a revolutionary when
she runs away with Percy,
and then becoming
kind of interpolated.
Becoming kind of corrupted
by Victorian ideals
about what a woman
should be like.
That the story went that she
was so interested in fitting
in that she was willing to sell
out those original
revolutionary ideas.
And, that was most
famously promulgated
by the great biographer
Richard Holmes
in his very beautiful
biography of Percy Shelley,
where he kind of puts Mary down.
Elevates Claire, and has
since apologized for this,
and no longer, you know,
holds to this idea.
>> Michael Dirda: Good.
>> Charlotte Gordon: Yes.
>> Michael Dirda:
I didn't know that.
>> Charlotte Gordon: Yes.
Which is great.
But, so there was sort
of a-- what's the word?
Like, a-- not a kickback.
There was-- people didn't like
this idea about Mary Shelley.
They wanted to see her
as more revolutionary.
In the 1831 edition, for a
while was seen as more of a kind
of sell out, a sell out edition.
Now, I would say, for most
scholars, and most teachers,
there is-- for most-- there is
in fact a pretty equal divide
about which edition
you're going to teach.
Currently, the 1818
one is more in fashion,
but the 1831 is also
super interesting,
because you can see
what Mary adds in.
Well what does she add in?
There's more philosophy,
if anything.
There's more ideas.
There's not more action.
But, there's more reading,
there's more literature,
there's more discussion of
what is the nature of creation.
Why are we here?
It doesn't read as quickly.
So, students, in fact, find it
a little bit more difficult even
than the 1818, which does
read more like a teenage girl,
despite Shelley's emendations,
which are pretty funny.
So, this is-- I'm going
to stop discussing this,
because there's been-- Yes?
I don't want to lose
our few people here.
>> Michael Dirda: Well,
the whole question
of Shelley's emendations--
>> Charlotte Gordon:
They're so funny.
>> Michael Dirda: -- has
given rise, I gather,
to a school of thought
that, in fact--
>> Charlotte Gordon: No, a
tiny group of stupid people.
>> Michael Dirda: That Shelley
himself actually wrote the book.
So, I mean, this-- I mean, I'm
not giving it any necessary--
>> Charlotte Gordon: I know.
>> Michael Dirda: -- credence.
But, I've-- he did a
good deal of scribbling
around with the manuscript.
Supposedly he was,
you know, an editor,
just giving the usual
response of a, you know,
a spouse to a writing
partner's work.
But, what is the
reason that people think
that Shelly could have--
that is, the male Shelley,
could have written the book?
>> Charlotte Gordon:
This is so--
I wish all of my talks could
have-- this is so great.
You're asking all the
greatest questions.
I used to know the numbers by
heart, because this question
so engaged me, is the
polite way to put it.
And so, I don't want
to say the numbers,
because I'll get them wrong,
but they're in my book.
I think he adds-- we know almost
exactly how many words he added
to the 1818 edition.
In part because of the work,
the amazing scholarship
of Charles Robinson at the
University of Delaware,
who went through the notebooks,
and did a kind of coding.
Because you can see
his handwriting
versus her handwriting.
I'm tempted just to
say how many words.
It's like, 7,000 words
out of 80,000 words.
Or, it's-- the percentage
is very small.
Far less for example, than
the percentage of emendations
that Ezra Pound does to
T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland.
And, you know, there's never
been this debate about--
well, in some circles,
there is a debate
about who really
wrote Wasteland.
>> Michael Dirda:
Pound just cuts.
But, Percy adds.
>> Charlotte Gordon:
Percy adds and cuts.
Percy's emendations tend to be
changing vocabulary from kind
of simple verbs to
fancier verbs.
He puts in a very funny--
one of my favorites is,
when she's talking about
the Alps, and Switzerland,
he puts in-- that's one
of his longest ones.
It's about this long.
Where suddenly-- I think it's
during one of the chase scenes,
and suddenly there's this
pause in the narrative,
where we get a history
about Republican values.
The values of democracy
in Switzerland,
and how it's always been
a more free country.
And, like, wait.
I thought I was reading
a Gothic novel.
But, in fact, suddenly, I'm
reading political philosophy,
by it seems, someone else.
So, I think there's teeny
little moments like that.
But, essentially,
it is her story.
They talk about it.
And, that-- but that
really interesting structure
of Frankenstein that
never goes away,
that sort of Russian
doll structure,
where we have the
story within the story.
And, that balance, right?
That is Mary's.
That is Mary's.
It's not Percy's.
His ideas-- I mean, maybe the
better analogy is Fitzgerald
to Max Perkins than
Pound to Eliot.
I mean-- but I think even
that is too active an analogy.
That Percy does--
she does hand--
we can see the manuscript.
They sat in bed together
with this writing desk,
and she would hand
it over to him.
And, he did act as
a kind of editor.
You can see him fixing
the commas.
Giving her some fancier
verbs here and there.
But, not actually
altering that overall,
sort of idea of the structure.
Unless you want to say talking
about ideas before you're
writing it is writing the book.
But, it was her book.
It was her book.
And, he was a beloved editor.
But we also don't say
about Percy's poems
that she wrote his poems.
And, as some of you know,
he died with all his
papers in great disarray.
So, if you look at his
notebooks in the Bodleian,
you can see parts
of stories written
on different pieces of paper.
Parts of poems, some of his
most famous poems, are in--
are written on literally,
different sheets of paper.
So, who puts those together?
Who's the miracle editor there?
Mary. And, she probably does
much more active editing
of Percy's work, than he
really does of thinking
through the sort of, novelistic
ideas of Frankenstein.
But, never has his work--
never has his authorship
been challenged.
So, just-- see, my
students taught me this too,
just saying that-- I think
that we can let that question
of the authorship of
Frankenstein rest.
But, it's very interesting--
it's interesting historically
that we've questioned it.
I think it tell us a
lot about, you know,
the history of women
and literature.
>> Michael Dirda: Shelley
was the first poet I
ever discovered.
I was sitting in a parking
lot, behind a department store,
and I noticed a bunch of
kids prowling through--
there were these huge dumpsters.
And, they came out
with a pile of records.
Huge-- someone must
have hidden them there.
And, I jumped out of the car,
and I said give me
some of those.
And, I took them home.
And, one of them was Poems of
Shelley, read by Vincent Price.
>> Charlotte Gordon: No!
>> Michael Dirda: And, I
put it on my record player,
and I was just enchanted.
Some them, you know, I-- some
of them were incredibly corny.
I can remember to this day.
"I arise from dreams of thee, in
the first sweet sleep of night,
when the winds are
breathing low,
and the stars are
shining bright.
I arise from dreams of thee, and
a spirit at my feet hath led me
who know how, to thy
chamber window sweet.
I die! I faint!
I fail!" It goes on.
>> Charlotte Gordon: [inaudible]
I think that's how they talked
to each other.
>> Michael Dirda:
Well, you mentioned
when Mary Wollstonecraft
in Paris, and Wordsworth.
Of course, Wordsworth
was in Paris
as well during the Revolution,
and read about it
in the Prelude.
And, I've always thought he
wrote about Paris in the way
that I think about the '60s.
As a couplet.
Bliss, was it in that
dawn, to be alive.
To be young was very heaven.
Frankenstein's a very strange
book in a number of ways.
I mean, we think of the
story's-- this scary story,
but we know it's a
philosophical romance.
But, there's even
this sort of strange,
kind of Arabian Tales family
of a Christian convert.
Elements that, you know, it
ends up in the North Pole,
where they're going over
the ice like something
out of the Ancient Mariner,
which was an apparent influence.
You have any sense
of why the novel has
such a strange structure?
Why it brings in all
these disparate elements?
I mean, he leaves--
I guess, Geneva,
or wherever he was--
or Germany I guess.
He made the original creature,
goes to the Orkney
Islands to make the female.
And then, he has a change
of heart in the middle
of everything, and destroys it.
The book is provocative.
And yet, it seems so
almost inconclusive
in a way that might be useful.
You know, it can support
all kinds of theories,
all kinds of interpretations.
When you teach the novel,
what do you try to emphasize?
What elements particularly
appeal to you and your students?
>> Charlotte Gordon:
First, I want to ask Michael
that question, ask all
of you that questions,
but one of the topics that we
have just been discussing is,
how she gives equal weight--
because we've been talking a lot
about this in the
current political climate.
So, Shelley-- I hate
to call her Shelley
because in 1818 she
was still Godwin,
but Shelley gives equal weight
to Doctor Frankenstein's point
of view, and the
creature's point of view.
And, there's something I
think intrinsically ethical
about that, which if we want
to talk about, you know,
our current climate, we can,
but I think that she's really
putting a lot on the reader
to ask these questions.
So that Michael is
so exactly right.
It is a kind of unresolved,
intrinsically unresolved novel.
Because we have these
different points of view
that are given equal weight.
And, we also have this,
kind of, off-stage audience,
which is the sister
of the explorer.
Now, I know-- for those of you
who haven't read this
novel in a while--
>> Michael Dirda: It's
all written as letter.
>> Charlotte Gordon: Yes.
You might have forgotten this,
but in fact, the novel begins
with the explorer
writing to his sister,
who has the very same
initials that Mary will have
when she marries Percy, MWS.
And so, this sister seems to be
the only person who has any kind
of reasonable ideas
about how to live life,
because the explorer's
always saying to his sister,
don't worry, I'll try to, like,
save my life and that of my men.
But, I don't want to
fail, and turn back
from exploring, you
know, the pole.
But, you can hear her-- we
never get to hear it directly,
but you can hear in the
background this sort
of invisible chorus, Come home.
Relationships matter.
Stay connected, be
in a community.
You don't need to go be this
solo explorer in the Arctic.
You can be human, and
apart of community.
But, I think it's so interesting
that that voice is implicit.
We hear-- the book seems
to be a reaction to that.
So, that's of interest to me.
I always try to point out why--
you know, she doesn't
have to do that, right?
We could have just had
one version of the story,
but why do we have
these different versions
of the story layered
against each other?
I think that's so interesting.
And then, of course,
the biograph--
can I just say one more
biographical thing.
>> Michael Dirda: Sure.
>> Charlotte Gordon: One
more biographical piece
of information.
And, I think Michael
and I were probably--
I don't know if this
went on at Cornell,
but we might have been
trained similarly.
You may not realize this, but
it's a scandalous thing to do,
to look at an author's biography
when you're reading a text.
So, all of my professors
were new critics.
And, you were only supposed to
look at the text, and not think
about the author's life at all.
So, every time I write a
biography, I always am plagued
by guilt, because of course
that's what I'm doing.
I'm mining their lives, so
for the reading of the book.
So, when you read Frankenstein,
especially the 1818 version,
I just want to tell
you something.
That as she was writing this,
she endured two horrible
tragedies.
One was, if you remember,
Mary Wollstonecraft first
daughter, little Fanny.
Little Fanny is three
years older than Mary,
and they were very close,
but Fanny lost her mother
when her mother died.
And, Gilbert, the
stupid sexy American,
vanished and never came back.
So, Fanny never really
had her own parents.
Although Godwin adopted
her, he was very clear
that his own daughter
was superior to Fanny.
I mean, he loved Fanny.
Kind of. I mean, she wasn't
as sparkly and amazing
as his own daughter, and so
when Mary is revising this
novel, Fanny kills herself.
And, another horrible suicide
happens at the same time,
which is, if you remember,
Percy had been married
when he ran away with Mary.
And, his abandoned wife also
killed herself during the
revising of this book.
So, there is a way in which I
think Mary is writing about--
I love that-- I'd forgotten
those were the first words.
It's so beautiful.
That Mary's really writing
about how do we receive others.
That those women, they both died
because they'd gotten
exiled from their community.
They'd gotten exiled
because Fanny was a bastard.
She was the daughter of a woman
who'd had sex out of wedlock.
Harriet, Percy's
abandoned wife, dies in part
because she's been
abandoned by Shelley,
but also because
she'd become pregnant
with another man
who wasn't Shelley.
And so, had become one
of the monstrous women
of that time period.
So, I think there's a sort
of drum beat of the dangers
of what we do to one another.
Of people who trespass, who
step out of their territories.
>> Michael Dirda: That's
really the explanation--
the mon-- the creature.
Well, the monster--
>> Charlotte Gordon: Yes.
>> Michael Dirda: -- the
creature gives for his murders.
He said that he has
been a misery.
Just sheer misery that
he's been rejected, alone.
He's educated himself by
observing this family.
Learned, you know--
read Paradise Lost,
and John Locke, and everything.
>> Charlotte Gordon:
He's highly educated.
>> Michael Dirda: The world
sees him as a monster, and it's,
you know, he is made a
monster by the world,
not by Doctor Frankenstein.
>> Charlotte Gordon: Yes.
And, I think that that's
where that ethical--
you know, if she had just
come out and written it.
If she had been her mother,
she would have written a
political essay about this,
but by putting the
narratives next to each other,
we get to see how the
creature has been abandoned
and not parented.
And, how in fact, he was
so ready to be loved.
I mean, there he is,
reading Paradise Lost.
In fact, I wrote
an essay for Slate
about how I think
Elon Musk needs
to re-read Frankenstein, right?
Because I think, really,
the moral of the story
from that point of
view is we need
to take care of our inventions.
We need to parent our work
when it goes into the world.
We need to prepare
the world for it.
And, we need to parent
and nurture it,
or it will become monstrous.
And so, Frankenstein,
when we hear his story,
we can understand why
he does what he does.
But, we are better able
to judge it by hearing
that poor creature's
point of view.
>> Michael Dirda: You
mentioned at the beginning
that Frankenstein is often
regarded as the sort of,
the first real science
fiction novel.
You know, this is
a view promulgated
by the writer Brian Aldiss, in a
book called Billion Year Spree.
What is there about Frankenstein
that makes it a science
fiction novel as opposed to some
of the earlier, you
know, candidates.
Things like the Voyages
to the Moon you get
from Cyrano de Bergerac
and the like.
Is it simply because it's
a scientist who determines
to conduct a kind of experiment?
And, this is really the
first such incidence of this?
>> Charlotte Gordon:
I don't know.
I'm just so-- I feel
like Michael and I,
we should go right
out to dinner to--
>> Michael Dirda: Well, I mean--
>> Charlotte Gordon: Yes.
It's such a great question.
So--
>> Michael Dirda: The
interesting thing is
that although we only remember
Mary Shelley for Frankenstein,
she went on to write
other, sort of,
science fictional
and Gothic-y works.
She wrote a novel about the
elixir of life, called--
well, short story--
The Mortal Immortal.
And, she wrote a novel about,
essentially the end
of the world.
>> Charlotte Gordon: Yes.
The Last Man.
>> Michael Dirda: The Last Man.
And is really-- ends
with one guy left alive.
>> Charlotte Gordon:
Roaming the earth.
>> Michael Dirda: It's one
of the great science
fiction themes.
There's others.
Was there any influence
on the novel that you know
of from legend-- the
Jewish legend of the gloom.
>> Charlotte Gordon: Oh,
I've wondered that myself.
I haven't found evidence,
and I've wondered about that.
I don't know.
I don't know.
>> Michael Dirda: You know, the
golem was created out of clay
by a rabbi of Prague,
and came alive
to help protect the
Jews of Prague.
>> Charlotte Gordon:
Because Mary was Mary,
she kept copious reading lists.
I love Mary.
I mean, when she got
sad and depressed,
she taught herself
ancient Greek.
Like, I know-- she was
amazingly self-disciplined.
One of her disciplines
was keeping a reading list
of all the books that she read.
And so, we know what
she was reading
when she was writing
Frankenstein.
And, one of the most
influential books that she
and Percy read during this time
were descriptions of slavery
in Barbados and Jamaica.
In fact, they gave up
sugar during this time.
They were, you know,
political activists,
which was Richard Holmes's great
contribution in his biography
of Percy, is showing how
politically active Percy was.
But, I think in terms
of the science question,
Holmes also wrote a book
that I know Michael knows
called The Age of Wonder.
And, I don't want to be--
>> Michael Dirda: I reviewed it.
>> Charlotte Gordon: Yes.
And, something that I think
that he knows as well as I do,
and I think many of you
know, is the word science,
as we know it today, had
very different meanings then.
People weren't scientists,
right?
You did science, and
you were also a poet,
and you might look at the stars.
So, if you're Percy, you might
burn paper boats on a lake,
or sit up in the barn all night,
to see if a ghost would come.
But, that was all investigation.
So, Mary wouldn't have seen--
she would have been confused
by the word science
as we used it.
For her, she would say this book
is a story about an imagination,
obsession, ambition, men
and women, community.
But, she would say it's
more about invention
and imagination than science.
You can see why we would
call it science, right?
We've got a guy,
essentially in a lab.
We've got him in a lab.
But, I love what he's reading.
It's not like he's working
with [inaudible], you know.
He's reading, you
know, those crazies.
He's a great reader,
Frankenstein.
>> Michael Dirda: I think
a [inaudible] now is
that Victor Frankenstein, the
creature are in some ways twins.
>> Charlotte Gordon: Yes.
>> Michael Dirda: They're
sort of Jekyll and Hyde.
>> Charlotte Gordon: Did
you see the National?
Did you see that
production of Frankenstein?
>> Michael Dirda: No.
Oh, I know that Benedict
Cumberbatch--
>> Charlotte Gordon: Yes.
>> Michael Dirda: -- and
Johnny Lee Miller played the--
Victor and the creature,
and they would alternate
from day to day who was who.
Whom. But, I didn't see it.
Did you see it?
>> Charlotte Gordon: Yes.
>> Michael Dirda: Was it good?
>> Charlotte Gordon:
Oh, it was unbelievable.
>> Michael Dirda: Who was the
monster and the [inaudible]?
>> Charlotte Gordon: I saw it
twice, so I could see them both.
>> Michael Dirda:
You saw it twice?
Really? And, which was better?
>> Charlotte Gordon: I know.
I wanted to have an opinion.
It's like we're reading
the book, right?
I thought they were
both amazing.
They were amazing.
>> Michael Dirda: Wow.
>> Charlotte Gordon:
It was so sympathet--
and then, I read the-- did you
read the interviews with them
about what it was like?
>> Michael Dirda: No.
>> Charlotte Gordon:
I mean, I think it's--
to really responsibly
read Frankenstein,
I feel like you have to
have that experience, right?
To be Frankenstein,
and to be the creature.
You have to embody both
of those points of view.
As well as the sister back home.
[inaudible]
>> Michael Dirda: I think
maybe we should open
to some questions now.
Yes?
>> First of all, thank you.
>> Charlotte Gordon: Yes.
>> [inaudible] I think
that this work is,
as far as science
fiction is concerned,
what differentiates it
from fantasy, for example,
looping back [inaudible]
ancient Greek times,
and voyages to other worlds.
And, that's fantasy.
[inaudible] scientific ideas,
more about [inaudible] some
future time [inaudible]
or possible.
But, what I want to say is,
along those lines,
this is very today.
It's very meaningful
to me, Frankenstein,
because of the ability to--
for artificial intelligence,
and androids perhaps.
And, this is a Faustian
kind of tale.
Faustian hubris.
And one of the lessons
we might learn from this,
especially now [inaudible] we
can become Doctor Frankenstein,
say, a scientist, is
what lines can you cross.
[inaudible] to be Prometheus?
To bring, you know-- to
create life, and what is this?
Is this a cautionary tale?
Or [inaudible] because
scientists can do it.
They will do it.
Maybe not in our country,
but in another country.
And so-- and I separate
from that,
we're going to have artificial
intelligence, probably.
We're going to have androids.
Are they slaves?
Are they like, you know,
like children [inaudible]
so it brings up a whole host
of relevant questions today.
>> Michael Dirda: I'm going
to repeat the gist
of what he just said.
>> Charlotte Gordon: It
was beautifully said.
>> Michael Dirda:
Just for the playback.
Basically, that Frankenstein
seems all the more relevant
today, because of our
rapidly expanding technology,
and to artificial
intelligence, and development
of robots, and androids.
And, more than ever, it's
a useful cautionary tale
about limits, about examining
what we're actually doing
when we create new forms
of intelligent beings,
as machines in some
ways might be called.
And, that's true.
I mean, this is what it's--
it's a book that we
keep coming back to.
I mean-- I guess the most
famous revisiting of the novel,
in a way, might be H.G. Wells's
The Island of Doctor Moreau,
where we see again the
creation of creatures out of--
in this case, out of animals,
which are intelligent.
But with, you know,
horrible consequences still.
Are there other questions?
>> Did Mary Shelley during
her life have any inkling
of how influential
her book had become,
or was it really the movies
that helped spread this story?
>> Charlotte Gordon: Did
Mary Shelley have any inkling
of how influential
the book would become.
It is the most-taught
book, apparently,
at least in this country.
I know, isn't that interesting?
My students, if I
say Percy Shelley
to them, they're like, who?
If I say-- and I say he was
married to Mary Shelley,
the author of Frankenstein,
and the all say.
Oh. Unlike you.
[inaudible] Anyway.
No, she didn't.
I think 500 copies were
the initial print run.
They didn't sell out.
She made no money
from Frankenstein.
She was in Italy
when it did come out.
When she came back home,
and it had been discovered
that she was the author, and she
was, you know, in social exile,
by that time, playwrights and
theater troupes, so, you know,
the 18th century ideas of
movies, had taken the story,
and in those times,
you weren't protected
if you were a novelist,
by copyright.
So, they could do whatever
they wanted with your story.
So, they were putting
it on the London stage.
And there were protests
against it.
You know, people marching
with placards saying this
is, you know, immoral.
But, Frankenstein-- she writes
a letter saying I've come home
and found myself famous.
So, she knows that
Frankenstein has become part
of the popular conversation.
And, the word Frankenstein
itself, very quickly,
becomes no the scientist,
but the monster.
There's an early political
cartoon that shows,
I think it's the Irish.
I forget. This book now is
five years-- four years old.
That's my only excuse.
It's either the Irish are
being depicted as a monster,
Frankenstein, or the English.
I forget. Sorry.
But, the word Frankenstein and
the elision between Frankenstein
and the monster happens
very early on.
So, she does know
that it's, you know,
had sort of a cultural
impact, enough that she's going
to be asked to revise
it in 1831.
And, she becomes, you know,
she starts to head the
list of her publisher.
She is well-known as
a literary person.
But, she never would
have dreamed
that she would become
a household name,
or that everybody would
read Frankenstein.
Ever. She would never
have known that.
>> Michael Dirda: I
love the first title
for when it became a stage play.
It was called Presumption,
or the fate of Frankenstein.
And-- which tells you a lot.
Right there.
But, certainly the
James Whale movie,
and Boris Karloff have made
it universally recognizable.
Do you feel any kind of
resentment about the film,
that it gives a false
interpretation
and view of the novel?
And, that too many people are--
think that the book is in
fact something like the movie,
when it is very little
like the movie.
>> Charlotte Gordon: Do you?
>> Michael Dirda: Do I?
I've never been a movie person.
So, I'm a book guy.
So, yes. Anything that'll
put down movies, negatively,
is good as far as I'm concerned.
Our culture's too involved with
film as far as I'm concerned.
But, I'm out of place
and out of time.
So, yes. I prefer the book
because the book raises
all kinds of questions
that the movie just skirts.
>> Charlotte Gordon: Yes.
>> I'm interested to learn
from your talk tonight how
socially [inaudible] they were
about not eating
sugar after learning
about Barbados and Jamaica.
Could you tell us
a little bit more
about their social activism?
[inaudible]
>> Charlotte Gordon: Yes.
>> Michael Dirda: Free thinkers.
Atheists. The works.
>> Charlotte Gordon:
Anti-marriage.
Anti-institution.
>> Yes.
>> Charlotte Gordon: Shelley--
I mean, there's so many
funny stories about Shelley,
I don't know which one of
us should jump on that.
So, the question is--
>> [inaudible]
>> Charlotte Gordon:
Shelley was.
>> [inaudible]
>> Charlotte Gordon: Yes.
So, the question was
how active were they,
were Shelley and Mary?
>> Yes.
>> Charlotte Gordon: So,
we can both answer this,
but one of the great
contributions
that Richard Holmes
does, is he gives us a--
and this book is very, very old.
It's his first biography.
And, it's a biography
of Percy Shelley.
And, he gives us this
complete picture of Percy
as essential a radical.
Ad, thanks to Mary, who,
for many strategic reasons,
paints the dead Percy as kind
of an angelic Victorian figure,
we almost lose track of
the sort of bad boy Percy.
She says, you know,
he dies early
because he was too
good for this world.
She mentions, never, any
of his atheism, his--
none of this was mentioned when
his editions of poems come out,
so that they'll sell and
people will read them.
But, there's many famous
stories about Percy.
He's kicked out of Oxford for
writing a tract about atheism.
He goes up to Ireland
to campaign.
People don't know
what to make of him.
He's like, come on.
Unite! That's how he gets
in touch with Mary's family,
is he writes a fan
letter to William Godwin,
saying I really respect
your views on anarchy
and lack of government.
I'd really like to meet
you and support you.
And, Godwin, who always needs
money thinks this young nobleman
would be of interest to meet.
And, that's how Mary
ends up meeting him.
But, Percy would do things
like sending political messages
in bottles out in the sea, and
send fiery kites up into the--
you know, so people
would hear the message
of freedom for all, and justice.
He wrote a very famous poem--
>> Michael Dirda: [inaudible]
>> Charlotte Gordon:
Portesting Peterloo.
>> Michael Dirda: All in
all, he's the kind of guy
who doesn't deserve to
have the name Percy.
I mean, he's not at all--
>> Charlotte Gordon: No.
He was wild.
>> Michael Dirda: -- that
kind of writer, and thinker.
He was very much against
everything, basically.
>> Charlotte Gordon: Yes.
>> Michael Dirda: And, lived as
free a life as he could imagine.
>> Charlotte Gordon:
And that-- he didn't--
the always interesting
contradiction to me is,
he didn't pay his bills either.
So, there he was fighting for
the rights of working men,
and then they'd like--
>> He wouldn't pay them.
>> Charlotte Gordon: No.
He'd like, leave town.
>> Michael Dirda: There
was another question here?
Yes?
[ Inaudible Question ]
>> Charlotte Gordon:
This is on Frankenstein.
So, Frankenstein is actually
first received most popularly
by the French.
Which I think is
really interesting.
You know, there's a lot of
disorganization in Europe
when this book comes out.
And, Germany as we
know it doesn't--
you know, it doesn't exist.
But, the French are
very interested in it.
And, she becomes kind of
a celebrity en France.
And, I don't know when we could
really say the first German
translation is.
And, I think that's a
really interesting question.
I want you to go
find out and tell me.
I never thought to ask.
I never thought to ask--
>> [inaudible]
>> Charlotte Gordon: Can I
tell you one thing about Mary
and translations, though?
Which is so off-topic.
So, Mary always has to make
a living after Percy dies.
She's always trying to
make a living with her pen,
just like her mother did.
And, she does go on and
write five more novels,
which are all really
interesting,
and not very readable.
Because they're very informed by
ideas, and not by ideas like how
to make a realistic
plot, and character--
you know, she's not
interested in any of that.
And so, at the end of her
life, writing life, the first--
the guy who starts the
first English encyclopedia,
not the French one, comes to
her, and says, I would like you
to write the entries for us.
For the great French authors,
the great Italian authors,
the great Portuguese writers.
I think also the
great Greek writers.
And, Mary is the only-- he asks
her this, not because he wants
to include a woman in
his stable of writers,
because she is the only woman.
It's because she's the
only English writer
who knows all of
those languages.
Se was so exquisitely
self-educated.
And, she enjoyed
doing these entries.
She was really a great
writer of non-fiction.
These are her hardest
works to find,
because they were encyclopedia
entries that weren't signed.
So, she goes to the man, and
she says, I really enjoyed this,
I think we should do an
encyclopedia of women writers.
And he, scoffed at
that and said, well A,
no one would read it,
and B, there aren't any.
And so, no thank you.
So, here's what she does.
She writes these
sort of palimpsests.
She writes, for example--
this is my version of
her Michel de Montaigne--
Michel de Montaigne, great
French essayist was helped
by his niece, Marie,
a great editor,
and a poet in her own right.
Here is an example of one of
her poems in the entirety.
So, this was very
much how she operated.
So, I think this is so not
an answer to your question,
but the word translation.
I just wanted you to know
how Mary Shelley operated
as a political activist.
She had to figure out a way
during the Victorian era
to get her points across in a
way that was far more difficult
than the preceding generation,
where Mary Wollstonecraft was
a famous political activist.
I mean, she was a
famous radical,
and so was William Godwin.
And, actually it was harder
to be an activist when Percy
and Mary were together,
and later when Victoria
takes the throne.
It's harder to be an activist.
You have to figure out
different ways to do it.
It was dangerous.
[ Inaudible Question ]
She was a language person.
So, Percy knew Greek and Latin.
And so, he was actually
her first teacher
with Greek and Latin.
Then, they spent so
much time in Italy.
And then, she believed that, you
know, every civilized person--
oh, I think it was actually
Spanish and Portuguese.
>> Michael Dirda: I wonder
if-- did she know Beckford?
William Beckford who
wrote Vathek, or Vathek.
>> Charlotte Gordon: Oh.
>> Michael Dirda: Which
was sort of influence on--
you know, it was
30 years earlier--
but an influence
on Frankenstein.
But, he wrote a famous journal
about his time in Portugal.
And, there could possibly be--
>> Charlotte Gordon:
That's great.
>> Michael Dirda: --
of interest to that.
>> Charlotte Gordon: I
never thought of that.
>> Michael Dirda: Kincaid and
the Portuguese literature.
Just speculation.
Are there other questions?
If not, I think-- oh wait,
there's one last question there.
[ Inaudible Question ]
>> Charlotte Gordon:
That's interesting.
>> [inaudible]
>> Charlotte Gordon: Yes.
It sort of makes sense, because
when you asked that question,
it doesn't come to mind.
Thank you.
>> Michael Dirda: And, it's
interesting, that timing, 1912.
Which is about the time
there was a great compromise,
German horror writer, Hanns
Heinz Ewers, who wrote novels
about creation of
kinds of Frankensteins.
He later was compromised
because he joined the Nazis
and wrote the Horse Vessel song.
But, [inaudible], vampire,
and a couple of other books,
all deal with very much
Frankensteinian themes.
So, an interesting
juxtaposition of time.
Well-- oh.
In the back.
Another question, still.
[ Inaudible Question ]
Vathek. William Beckford.
It's an Arabian nights-style
Gothic romance
about a very corrupt khalif,
and what happens to him.
V-a-t-h-e-k.
>> [inaudible]
>> Michael Dirda: Well, it's--
it leads to his own destruction.
He's gone too far, basically.
The idea of presumption,
of going beyond the
limits of what is proper.
He's taken-- in a
way you could argue
that Victor Frankenstein's
assuming either God-like role,
or taking the woman's position
in a way, part of your theory--
not theory, but viewpoint,
that he is--
>> Charlotte Gordon: Assuming.
>> Michael Dirda:
Assuming powers
that don't belong
to human beings.
Again, are there
any final questions?
>> What's your next book?
>> Charlotte Gordon:
Which one of us-- ?
>> [inaudible]
>> Charlotte Gordon: We know
what Michael's next book is.
I want him to hurry up.
We have to send him home, so
he can go back to writing it.
I'm returning to
17th century America.
So, yes.
>> Michael Dirda: That's
all you want to say?
>> Charlotte Gordon: Yes.
Sort of a mess right now.
Your'e smart.
>> Michael Dirda:
Well, good luck.
>> Charlotte Gordon: Thank you.
>> Michael Dirda: [inaudible]
>> Charlotte Gordon: [laughs]
[ Applause ]
Thank you for coming
out tonight.