Vulgar History - Mary Shelley Month： Why Frankenstein Still Matters

00:00:00.000 hello and welcome to vulgar history a feminist women's history comedy podcast my name is ann

00:00:17.440 foster and it is mary shelley month october is the month where we pay tribute to our goth icon

00:00:23.920 my personal friend, Mary Shelley. And today we are talking with, I would say one of the biggest

00:00:31.000 Mary Shelley fans that I've ever met, who is a woman named Claire Fitzpatrick. She lives in

00:00:36.540 Australia. We had a fantastic conversation about all things Mary Shelley. And I will say

00:00:41.240 she lives in a part of Australia where there's lots of birds chirping and there's lots of

00:00:47.120 interesting Australia sounds in the background of her recording, I think. And just like enjoy,

00:00:52.220 enjoy imagining Australia unless you're there in which case I'm sorry it sounds like it's pretty

00:00:57.640 hot there right now for you anyway Claire Fitzpatrick is a multiple award-winning speculative

00:01:03.800 fiction and non-fiction author Bram Stoker award finalist and currently an academic studying 0.97

00:01:09.360 Frankenstein and the female gothic and she honestly is just such an iconic conversation

00:01:15.780 I was really excited to talk to her about Mary Shelley because in the last episode we were

00:01:19.680 talking about Mary Shelley's just kind of life story. And then Claire with her research about

00:01:24.760 Mary Shelley and her literary legacy, we can really get into the themes and not just about

00:01:31.060 Frankenstein, but other books that Mary Shelley wrote. Anyway, happy Mary Shelley month. Enjoy

00:01:35.600 this conversation with Claire Fitzpatrick. So my guest today is Claire Fitzpatrick, who is

00:01:46.520 an australian writer and academic currently researching mary shelley and it's mary shelley

00:01:53.500 month so it's like i couldn't not have you on the podcast claire can you explain what your research

00:01:58.420 what your research is what are you studying hi so basically i'm really interested in the

00:02:04.660 connection between like frankenstein and parenting and frankenstein and the idea of

00:02:11.340 victor frankenstein as a mother instead of a father so basically i'm just looking at the idea

00:02:17.760 of frankenstein like victor being like a really shitty mom instead of a really shitty dad so yeah 0.98

00:02:23.980 looking at the ideas of like oh my god what happens if you like you're a really shitty 0.83

00:02:29.020 parent and then your child grows up and has problems i wonder why like is there a connection

00:02:34.540 between bad parenting or neglectful parenting and then the way that a person turns out so

00:02:41.340 connecting to frankenstein and this is like the listeners will have recently just heard

00:02:46.620 the a discussion about mary shelley in her life how she came to write frankenstein

00:02:50.580 but also a discussion of mary wallstonecraft and so like basically we're talking about people with

00:02:55.040 shitty parents that is mary shelley her dad was well i don't know what are your impressions about

00:03:02.020 what her parenting how she was parented i guess i think william godwin i think he probably did the

00:03:09.320 best that he could have done I do and I think a lot of people are like well he sort of like

00:03:15.140 shut himself away after Mary Wollstonecraft died and oh my god he like married his neighbor to look

00:03:21.480 after his kids but like he did have two kids look after so and like he's living in this you know

00:03:28.900 London townhouse surrounded by like books and tutors and you know salons radical figures and

00:03:35.560 And so, you know, he needed a parent for his girls, because I think people forget that

00:03:40.500 Fanny was already there, Mary's half-sister.

00:03:44.300 So I think, like, I've just always been really interested in the idea of, like, parenting

00:03:49.520 and what a parent's effect can have on you, I think. 0.67

00:03:53.580 And because of, obviously, like, Mary Shelley's early life and having a shitty, evil stepmom, 0.97

00:03:59.520 I guess. 0.97

00:04:00.460 That's the thing, too.

00:04:01.160 Yeah.

00:04:01.420 So I guess I will clarify.

00:04:02.480 that is kind of what I came away my understanding as well like William Godwin like I'm mad at him

00:04:07.540 I'm mad at him for what he did to Mary Wollstonecraft's legacy comma yes but I do think that

00:04:14.700 he well actually well I don't know he was an okay father to Mary Shelley he was not good to Fanny

00:04:21.560 he was not good but he was just like this like he's like this my child she has my blood and I

00:04:26.520 will like educate her so he was okay to her but Mary Jane the stepmom typical evil stepmother 0.99

00:04:32.320 type of vice I think people even forget that so this was like a blended family which is something 0.97

00:04:38.520 that I think people don't really um associate with back in those times so in like I think I think 0.81

00:04:45.720 I think I have William Godwin marriage um Mary Jane Claremont yeah basically the girl next door

00:04:50.960 I think was like 18 1801 1802 or something and like she brought like her all her children into

00:04:57.940 the mix she had like Claire Claremont like I guess you call it like the future sort of like 0.56

00:05:02.000 drama magnet and like byron's eloquent legends claire claremont like queen of my heart honestly

00:05:08.640 exactly i'll make a lot in terms of just like the blended family i saw somebody it might have been

00:05:13.120 in romantic was the book i was reading or maybe somebody interviewed anyway i just remember

00:05:16.640 every child in that house had two different parents yes like no no two children had the

00:05:23.140 same parents yeah yeah no and you even have charles claremont so peter so that's marie shelley's

00:05:29.440 other stepbrother and they sometimes call him Charles Godwin but no one really knows who his

00:05:34.520 dad was right and he was like the quietest stepbrother and he's not really in like the

00:05:39.480 Mary Shelley story or anything um but basically like there's just this bunch of kids in this

00:05:46.760 crazy household it's like a whirlwind of like grief and intellect and family politics it's like

00:05:53.640 perfect kind of like gothic stew I guess you know it's perfect gothic stew is a great phrase

00:05:59.300 it's a gothic stew yeah and it's like they're surrounded they're in this london tarn house

00:06:03.220 surrounded by like books and cheetahs and radical friends and like it's like it's like a salon

00:06:09.300 buzzing with like debates and stuff yeah so like mary shelley herself also or have you come across

00:06:15.820 this is this true that she would like go to visit her like will and godwin would take her to visit

00:06:20.180 mary waltzencraft's grave pretty regularly and she would like trace the letters on the grave and

00:06:25.160 it's how she learned to write and stuff like do you know if that's that sounds true I feel like

00:06:30.900 it's true is it true do you know we think it's true we're pretty sure it's true like we you can't

00:06:36.800 like a lot of the things that we know about Mary Shelley we can't know like for absolute certain

00:06:41.800 but we're fairly sure from like what she wrote what other people wrote about her that it was

00:06:45.580 probably true and yeah she probably escaped that like she probably is wanting to escape this mad

00:06:51.620 the household and just go hang out with her mom her mom bestie yeah her ghost mom well this and

00:06:56.560 this is the thing too so like in my research about Mary Wollstonecraft like before she died

00:07:00.220 she had written these books that were sort of like advice on parenting like sort of stories

00:07:05.300 for children like she was and she had been a teacher and stuff so I feel like she had an

00:07:09.680 interest in um you know teaching children and Mary Shelley as I understand it like she

00:07:16.480 not obsessively but like understandably like read her mother's work all the time like she wanted to

00:07:22.360 feel connected to her so she would sort of have felt like even though Mary Wollstonecraft was dead

00:07:27.140 like she kind of knew what she would have been like as a mother maybe from the writing yeah yeah

00:07:32.860 and one of the things like you know a lot of people can be critical of Godwin um but one of

00:07:38.220 the things was he was always like he was like this is your mom this is your mom your mom's like

00:07:42.860 amazing I like worship your mom and they had like a massive portrait of of Mary Wollstonecraft in

00:07:48.020 the house and it's like this is your mom these are all her books let's sit together and like

00:07:52.180 read her stuff you know and so Mary Wollstonecraft was always there you know what I mean she was

00:07:58.380 always there in the house just not there and I think so Mary Shelley always had the connection

00:08:02.880 with her mother without actually having known her which I find just super interesting it's

00:08:08.680 it's so bananas to me that it's like Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley like they're

00:08:12.280 both such significant women to like literature and like british history and the fact that it's

00:08:16.380 mother and daughter it's just like i don't know when else that happens like where a mother maybe

00:08:21.880 maybe anne boleyn and queen elizabeth is the only like mother-daughter pair maybe yeah maybe but

00:08:30.320 it's weird because we don't really get that in like literature no or anywhere and you don't

00:08:33.660 really get that in anything like historical things sciences you don't really get that kind

00:08:37.300 of like a duo of a mother-daughter and especially both of them getting like very high up in the

00:08:43.260 field like so well known and so well known during their lifetimes as well you know and it's not as

00:08:49.340 if I think a lot of time back then the year old days people would write things and then you know

00:08:54.220 they die impoverished here are these stories oh and they died penniless and it's just like okay

00:08:58.420 but yeah like Mary Shelley like was always kind of hustling for money right Mary Wollstonecraft

00:09:03.020 always no they both like made a career of it which was yeah that was a career yeah yeah and

00:09:10.140 that's what i think was so interesting well i'm just thinking like if we're kind of getting to

00:09:13.780 i'm working towards her writing frankenstein but if you could just set the scene for everybody so

00:09:19.600 she's growing up in this blended household which is like her father you know keeping her mother's

00:09:24.560 presence that her father like really caring about her but everything like i don't want to say it's

00:09:28.580 more or less messy than any other family growing up in London but it's like a chaotic place and

00:09:34.480 Mary flees as a teenager so can you describe that whole situation yeah of course um so yeah like

00:09:42.840 we're having a lot of problems so you know um so at this time when like Mary's growing up right

00:09:48.860 so it's actually just Mary and Fanny at home generally because Charles and William are boys

00:09:54.020 so naturally they're sent away to be educated whatever because of course and then you've got

00:09:59.500 like you know the increasing kind of like conservatism after like the french revolution

00:10:04.000 right and godwin's popularity it definitely like it slipped he's having financial difficulties he's

00:10:10.900 like he doesn't know what he's supposed to do so mary's growing up in this house and these half

00:10:17.680 siblings step siblings they're all trying to pitch and talk with the family to you know keep the

00:10:21.460 family bookshop and the the press that Godwin's sort of starting yeah because Godwin started

00:10:26.920 uh printing press with Mary Shane the evil stepmother so basically yeah so Mary's writing

00:10:33.220 poems and stuff for the the bookshop she's minding with the sisters and it's like her

00:10:41.260 brothers sent away and the daughters are educated at home which I mean it seems like a pretty good

00:10:46.240 do you if you're being educated by william godwin like yeah by godwin right yeah yeah and

00:10:53.120 and it's just really cool because she's it's constantly full of these intelligent people

00:11:01.240 like the most intelligent the most like literary famous people of the day are in this household

00:11:06.400 and so mary's there she's writing poems for like things that we can publish she's like

00:11:12.700 hosting the shop minding it and then it's like mary was there so she'd be like behind the lounge

00:11:21.320 like as a kid listening to like coleridge reciting poems like she's there listening to him like

00:11:28.140 you know reciting the ancient marida when she and fanny are supposed to be off into bed

00:11:32.260 you know so this it's just household of just like really it's just this intellectual yeah like stew

00:11:41.420 um and like I guess that's what we really know about her teenage life until I guess she's 16

00:11:48.820 you know until they're all chilling in a bookshop and then Percy comes along right so Percy Shelley

00:11:54.400 comes on the scene and he's he comes on the scene partially because he's like a big fan of William

00:11:59.820 Godwin initially right yeah yeah so he's basically like a fanboy he's read William Godwin's like all

00:12:06.140 his stuff he's like hey bro i'm so into your stuff i'm gonna like become a godwin kind of like a

00:12:12.540 follower a disciple of godwin and william godwin is like oh okay cool this this guy this young guy

00:12:18.480 he's great um i'll have him hanging around for a bit and then he's just like hanging out you know

00:12:24.540 chilling out and then like percy is like hey this is a who's this daughter of yours who is this

00:12:33.920 who's this chick like well and can i just clarify a percy shelley married at this time his pregnant

00:12:39.600 wife harriet like yeah you know what she's probably super nice she's probably the nicest

00:12:43.940 chick and she's always so pushed aside in history like she's just she's just harriet shelley she's

00:12:49.580 just harriet that's like but what about her like who was she i feel like harriet who was this

00:12:53.520 harriet shelley and fanny imlay are both sort of like yes in this story yeah both come to a tragic

00:12:59.400 end and it's kind of like I'm sure they were interesting too but yeah there's just I'm sure

00:13:04.600 they were great other more dramatic people are happening around them so he's married of course

00:13:08.920 he meets Mary Shelley she's a teenager I talked about this in the last episode like in more

00:13:13.940 detail but effectively they run away together with also Claire yeah so basically they're just

00:13:22.880 like hey we like we just want to get out of here right and so you know and I think Mary sees him

00:13:31.920 as oh my god he's this like philosopher this like philosophical disaster he's like he digs

00:13:37.460 radical pop politics he's like into smart girls like you know I think for both of them for Mary

00:13:44.660 and Percy like tick all the boxes for each other and then they're like let's elope hell yeah let's

00:13:50.140 just get married and like godwin is like are you serious what do you like what do you mean um and

00:13:56.880 it's interesting because like at that time mary is like really hurt she's really confused she's

00:14:00.800 like what do you mean you're supposed to be about like free love and like everything like that why

00:14:04.160 didn't you support her decision this is like this is um in um yeah what is it the book it's called

00:14:08.740 like oh it's by fiona samson and it's searching for mary shelley or something like that she she

00:14:14.040 really describes mary shelley is like she really wanted to be like what she thought her mother was

00:14:19.660 like and what she thought her mother would want her to be like which is like free love like all

00:14:24.260 this stuff and but William Godwin was like yeah I believe in that in principle but not for my

00:14:28.500 daughter yeah yeah not for you and it's and she's just like what do you mean and so I guess you've

00:14:36.320 got this kind of whirlwind of also hormones she's like 16 you know and she's like oh my god my dad

00:14:42.340 doesn't like me like my dad doesn't like my boyfriend how dare my dad don't like my boyfriend

00:14:46.320 and like want me to go live my fabulous life well and this is like you see this today well you see

00:14:52.900 this in every time period like the fact that the father didn't approve makes her like dig in even

00:14:57.280 harder she's like oh you don't approve well i'm gonna extra run away because exactly that makes

00:15:01.960 me more interested yeah but the thing is but she did she did extra run away and like she's like

00:15:08.980 okay i'm getting out of here and then so like claire is like you should like take me with you 0.99

00:15:14.660 and they're like okay cool let's go leaving fanny behind fanny but yeah yeah fuck man but like 0.98

00:15:23.360 and yeah and like they have this whirlwind adventure they're in like you know europe 0.99

00:15:28.240 they're in like france switzerland and like italy and the dad is like furious society is like

00:15:34.680 outraged them oh and like fanny's like hey hey guys i'm still alone here in this horrible house

00:15:43.720 that she is not biologically related to any of these people yeah she's the one daughter left i 0.99

00:15:48.680 imagine she's probably having to do all the i don't know chores or like hostessing or whatever

00:15:53.880 but so they get to um what's the timeline between they run away they're going on various adventures

00:15:58.900 they before she's writing frankenstein she's already been had one child that's died or not

00:16:05.360 i'm trying to remember the timeline of all of her various babies yeah pretty much so before she

00:16:11.920 writes Frankenstein she already um has had a child so she has a um a son no it's like a miscarriage 0.83

00:16:21.840 that she has and so so she's had um she's already had like a miscarriage and so like she's having

00:16:32.140 all these miscarriages and like she's still writing and reading and they're in Italy and

00:16:39.600 she's like her life is sort of like imploding but she's got this like imagination going right she's

00:16:44.980 like i want to write about my feelings i want to write about like all of this that is happening in

00:16:51.340 my life and so like so she's had like this miscarriage and it's like awful and then we get

00:16:59.040 to like the year without a summer so like 1816 right which is like to recap for everybody i've

00:17:06.040 i mentioned this in a few episodes but just to recap again mount tambora in indonesia is this

00:17:11.700 volcanic explosion and it just it just fucks up the climate and so there is just no sun

00:17:18.700 and and no warmth for a summer and this is where mary shelley claire percy they're hanging out for

00:17:26.740 some reason at lord byron's casa in um exactly geneva and this is where lord byron is just like

00:17:35.900 let's have a fun sleepover party and i challenge everybody to write a ghost story and this is where

00:17:40.720 frankenstein is written famously and i just everything you're saying now is making me think

00:17:45.580 like yeah marichelle is going through all this stuff like not just her own like child loss and

00:17:49.800 like all the thoughts she would be having about pregnancy and creating life but also

00:17:53.800 the sense of abandonment she feels from her own father exactly and it's it's hard because like

00:18:01.240 she sort of made this found family right she's like okay i found this really cool group of people

00:18:05.520 I found these like awesome people who like love me and you know want to hang out with me I want

00:18:09.700 to get to know me and really like appreciate me and then but she's going through all this kind of

00:18:15.800 like trauma I guess and so she has had a child like she's been pregnant and she's one of her

00:18:25.540 children has like passed away and she's just like obviously traumatized by this right okay she's 18

00:18:33.800 right yeah i'm just gonna say like she's like she's like so if we're just putting together all

00:18:37.840 this sort of like hormones happening in her body right now there's the like she she is a teenager

00:18:42.140 we have the like pregnancy child loss but then like postpartum but then pregnancy like there's

00:18:48.280 a lot happening so i think when people think about frankenstein the book which is like obviously a

00:18:52.560 classic widely beloved book but it's like the mental state of this girl writing it is like i

00:18:59.700 think that's such a that's such an important part of why I think it resonates because she's taking

00:19:04.980 these emotions and putting them into this fantastical story but like think about this like

00:19:10.940 19 year old person and what she's going through it's like of course this is what she wrote yeah

00:19:15.920 I know and like it made me think of so when I like moved out when I was 18 right and I was like I'm

00:19:21.420 just trying not to burn eggs I'm trying to like set up my little house with my little boyfriend

00:19:25.240 that i've got like oh yeah i'm gonna like go on my own can you imagine like going through this

00:19:31.620 trauma while you're still trying to learn how to cook like i'm sure she had to cook for it but like

00:19:36.140 we're still trying to learn to do normal things well no i'm gonna say also because we talk about

00:19:41.060 in the mary shelley episode like it's not so much at this point like she's just going she's going

00:19:44.440 through it like with just like grief and like pregnancy and whatever but like she is the i feel

00:19:48.520 like she is the only one in the friend group who does know how to cook i feel like shelley is just

00:19:52.960 like we can survive off of just like the grass and dandelions i think she's like we need protein

00:19:59.880 like she's the one who's there like i don't think she wants to be the mom friend but she

00:20:03.920 she is the mom friend because she's the one who's just like we're gonna all die

00:20:08.020 she's the mom friend dandelions yeah like exactly so she's also she's kind of the only person in

00:20:15.140 this found family with like a head on her shoulders yeah exactly and like so she is sort of like

00:20:20.700 she is pregnant and she's like really really ill and she's like having to cope with like all of

00:20:29.120 these sort of like problems that are happening in her life and like she's then she's got like her

00:20:36.200 like her boyfriend is suddenly like interested in her sister and so she's dealing with like 0.88

00:20:42.100 fucking like you know we're being sure Shelly and like Clay Claremont what like love is right 0.94

00:20:46.660 and so obviously Shelly is you know like Mary is going to be like really outraged by this she is 0.98

00:20:53.360 like you know she's had to leave her whole life she's had to leave like her dad who she loved

00:20:59.280 who idolized she's pregnant she's like really ill she's like sick and not and now like her

00:21:04.680 boyfriend is like hanging out with her stepsister totally banging like that must be like really

00:21:09.880 really awful and I think also and this is something else I got from the um the Fiona

00:21:14.340 Samson book but she was she theorizes that Mary Shelley was really she wanted to embody everything

00:21:20.020 her mother was about like free love and don't believe in marriage and whatever but it's like

00:21:23.720 but in her heart Mary Shelley was like a monogamist and she wanted a domestic life and Shelley was 0.99

00:21:29.780 like well I'm just gonna fuck around because that's what your mother said that's what your 0.97

00:21:32.960 dad says like this is the lifestyle you want isn't it and Mary Shelley's like uh-huh yeah okay 0.98

00:21:38.420 no and like and like they're living in so like they're living with like Claire in like this house

00:21:44.380 and they're like you know reading and writing they're hanging out with like Mary Shelley's

00:21:48.500 friends and one of her friends uh one of his friends are Thomas Hogg right and he like he was

00:21:55.680 like really good friends with like Shelley and he was this like a barrister and like a writer

00:21:59.900 and Mary and like Percy's like hey hey that Tom guy you should like totally sleep with him

00:22:05.780 because like we're all about free love and he wants to sleep with you and she's like no

00:22:11.860 and it's actually interesting like her relationship like her friendship with 0.61

00:22:17.340 thomas because at first she's like ill gross and then she we know through letters that she

00:22:21.360 ended up actually becoming a really good friend of his but the fact that percy was like you should

00:22:26.040 just sleep with my boy tom's hog and mary's like no thank you yeah we cannot listeners we cannot

00:22:31.760 overrusting by how much percy shelley is my personal enemy he oh my god i hate percy shelley

00:22:37.020 so much and like it's insane though right because like so like in 1815 she has this daughter right

00:22:43.420 she's like two two more premature baby then like she's probably gonna survive she doesn't

00:22:49.200 and she writes to hulk and it's like she's and then like the baby dies and she writes to him

00:22:53.920 and he's like hey like you know can you basically help and the fact that she's reaching out to

00:22:59.320 someone else because percy is like not emotionally available for her like yeah it's awful and she's 0.99

00:23:05.280 just like this too much this like two-month premature baby dies she's like holy fuck what 1.00

00:23:10.760 is my life my boyfriend is lame and stupid and fucking like other people and the fact that she 1.00

00:23:17.300 reached out to somebody and then percy was like oh you reached out to him you should have sex with 1.00

00:23:22.140 him yeah like percy read the room my man yeah i'm just also thinking about mary shelley like she's 0.98

00:23:28.560 got so many like just i don't know how many you would know how many but like she's just like in

00:23:33.020 a perpetual state of pregnancy childbirth postpartum child loss like and i would think

00:23:40.260 for her like having grown up in with the large looming shadow of her mother who died as a result

00:23:45.340 of childbirth like like pregnancy must be terrifying to her childbirth must be like i

00:23:50.320 could die like the connection between like and the fact that she had like miscarriages and then these

00:23:55.600 like some babies who died in infancy it's just like the connection of like birth and death can

00:24:01.660 you talk about that in in terms of frankenstein yeah of course um so one of the really cool things

00:24:08.920 is that in my research um i'm looking like looking into obviously like what do other people think

00:24:14.280 about it what what do other scholars think about frankenstein and one of the earliest i guess

00:24:20.060 research into it was by like nk mellow and that was in 1988 i think and she came along and and

00:24:29.740 just like hey do you think there's a connection between frankenstein and like mary shelley's like

00:24:35.940 actual life and birth like maybe and a lot of people hadn't actually like looked into that

00:24:41.900 before which is really really interesting because it's like hey we have this like you know woman

00:24:47.760 he's giving birth to children he's wrote this hideous book who calls it my hideous progeny

00:24:52.080 like she refers to frankenstein as her hideous progeny exactly yeah okay okay so yeah in in the

00:25:00.980 um in the original thing she's like i think it's like i'll go forth my hideous progeny and like

00:25:05.960 prosper or something so yeah so like um in in the 70s lmo and she's like hey it's maybe maybe

00:25:12.780 frankenstein's like a birth myth like maybe this is like a foundational work in like female

00:25:17.620 gothic you know and i guess for those who don't know much about the female gothic it's sort of

00:25:22.580 like a genre of fiction and horror of like concern with like the dangers and confines of domesticity

00:25:28.780 it's basically domestic labor and shit like that and like and moers was like hey like maybe this

00:25:36.320 is about like the physical and emotional trials of like maternity and maybe this is about like

00:25:41.800 shelly's trauma with pregnancy and childbirth and loss and so alan moers is like framing that

00:25:47.500 as this like gothic sort of articulation of like maternal mortality and patriarchal erasure you

00:25:54.540 know and and it's really interesting that she saw that and she was like hey maybe Mary Shelley is

00:26:00.520 actually writing about something else that's not just a general horror maybe it's actually

00:26:03.940 about herself well and it's about sort of like the thing about creating life um and how that

00:26:10.300 you know there's there's the natural element of that like that is how every you know species

00:26:15.140 propagates it's just like but in Frankenstein it like creating life becomes this horror but like

00:26:21.240 to Mary Shelley like everything we've just talked about like of course to her like the act of

00:26:25.180 childbirth would be very horrific to her I think and the connections do you think that like the

00:26:31.580 reason why this line of thinking wasn't really widespread until that one scholar you talked

00:26:36.600 about is because Frankenstein it's like well Dr. Frankenstein is a man the monster is a man so

00:26:42.140 people are just like oh this this is a dude book it's a book about men man yes yeah yes yes exactly

00:26:48.380 I think it's so interesting because when you look at it like I understand people look at things

00:26:53.140 through different lens and that's what we do and as a scholar we look at something through a

00:26:56.620 different lens and but it's just so mind-boggling that people hadn't actually sat down and thought

00:27:01.600 of that before actually connected the fact that this could be a theory you know that this could

00:27:07.700 be connected to trauma of childbirth and pregnancy and loss you know and I just find it interesting

00:27:15.100 that there's so many kind of like theories and there's so much interest in Frankenstein as like

00:27:20.960 early sci-fi which it was obviously early horror of course but there wasn't really a lot of actual

00:27:26.960 like interest about you know maternal horror until like the 70s and it's like and I feel like

00:27:36.060 I feel like Frankenstein was like kind of like that sleeper hit right it's like a sleeper hit

00:27:41.600 and it's like for years like even after it was published people are oh my god like it was really

00:27:46.140 well known but it sort of like faded like it didn't fade away for a while but I guess there

00:27:51.560 wasn't it took until maybe like the 60s like maybe the 70s until there was a resurgence into

00:27:57.320 wow what is this book actually about like maybe it's not just this horror book maybe it's it's

00:28:03.360 about other things like maybe there is more to unpack with the story can you um from your

00:28:09.700 research just off the top of your head like what would be an example of something that happens in

00:28:14.760 the book that could be connected to mary shelley's real life or to her feelings about parenthood or

00:28:21.240 childbirth yeah well basically you have like the for me if you look at it as sort of like

00:28:31.360 if you look at as victor as like a mom right instead of a dad which is where which is where

00:28:39.920 my research is framing it it's like well this is somebody who has tech you know quote unquote given

00:28:47.920 birth and then has sort of like a bent in this creature like a bent in this this child and this

00:28:53.260 child is having to grow up and learn everything without a parent you know and i think it's like

00:29:00.740 you see this here how it's kind of like critiquing kind of like critiquing the ethical kind of

00:29:06.760 dimensions of like creation and care in a way so and you see this in the book and it's like

00:29:12.100 even Ellen Moe was like hey the book occurs over nine months maybe this is something you know maybe

00:29:18.040 this is also wait say that again like the book takes place over an hour the story that's pretty

00:29:24.200 yeah the story takes that's pretty obvious like that's something yeah yeah that's obvious right

00:29:28.000 it stands out as nine months but that took me a while to actually understand like I didn't notice

00:29:32.620 it and at first I was like coincidence coincidence and I'm like oh come on that's like

00:29:38.560 nine months that's you know gestation everything like that and so again in a lot of research you

00:29:46.760 are kind of picking out things like you kind of think okay I think the story is about this I'm

00:29:50.880 going to find facts I'm going to find information in the story and pull out to find my research

00:29:55.860 but i think with frankenstein it's not that hard to look and see that it could be as like the

00:30:02.440 creature could be like a traumatized child you know yeah it could be a traumatized child who

00:30:07.700 was like trying to just make his way in the world because you know so for people who maybe haven't

00:30:12.300 read the book for a while and this is coming out this episode i don't know at the same time there's

00:30:16.300 the new the guillermo del toro frankenstein movie which i haven't seen yet but apparently it's like

00:30:21.140 one of the most like following the novel adaptations yeah but part of the narrative of

00:30:27.340 any movie of frankenstein that i've seen yeah is the mom like he abandons the monster because he's

00:30:33.760 like oh wait this didn't work out never mind and the monster is just like tracking him down and

00:30:38.020 trying to be like why did you abandon me like the monster yeah is like and then pretty much right

00:30:43.440 like because that's part of it yeah yeah yeah so basically the creature he's like like he's left

00:30:49.580 alone and unloved basically and he's seeking connection and he's seeking that companionship

00:30:54.660 and he is he's reading everything like he's reading like so much like philosophical intellectually

00:31:00.160 simulating things that he has become this really really articulate person which a lot of people

00:31:05.400 have read the novel like they're just like oh no he's just this monster like oh it's like you know

00:31:09.160 you can yeah i want to say just like for for most people i would say like when you for most people

00:31:14.620 like i just really i recently like in the last five years actually watched the universal monster

00:31:20.360 movie like frankenstein like the movie from like what is it like the 30s or 40s and it's like so

00:31:25.960 he's like smart and he's like met with like fear and like violence and shit like that right and

00:31:31.300 so there's like a line in it in the book and it's like if i can't like um if i cannot inspire love

00:31:37.840 I will cause fear right so it's like he is he is so angry and he he just wants a family right

00:31:48.200 and you know and like he goes off into the hills and he meets he finds his family he finds like

00:31:53.920 the DeLacys there are these this family that's kind of been like followed on bad times they kind

00:31:59.920 of lost all their all their money and everything and they're living in this little shack and he's

00:32:04.180 watching them and he's like oh my god is this a family this is weird and he's and that's how he

00:32:10.580 learns to talk that's how he learns to understand how to communicate because he's just observing this 0.99

00:32:16.160 family and he's looking at this family and he's like man this family has fuck all like this family 0.99

00:32:22.120 is poor and yet they're still together they're still here trying to create connections with 0.99

00:32:28.940 other they're still here trying to like I guess find ways to create happiness in this abject

00:32:38.260 misery and he's like so my dad Victor is it's like if he's unhappy with me why can't he try

00:32:46.920 and work with me like why can't we kind of like build a relationship what's what's with me why

00:32:51.940 am I so hideous you know and so we can see that connection between like nurture and parental

00:32:57.440 rejection I find in the movie the universal movie Boris Karloff is so sympathetic as Frankenstein

00:33:03.740 but he's not yeah he doesn't have this so I think if people read the book or maybe even when people

00:33:08.560 watch the Guillermo del Toro movie I presume yeah Jacob Elordi is going to be like talking in full

00:33:13.840 sentences and people just sort of imagine the monster Frankenstein's monster is like a zombie

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00:36:12.000 But it's like, no, this is a philosophical book, and the monster speaks philosophically.

00:36:16.120 Yeah.

00:36:16.340 it is it is and and he's just trying to figure out like who he is as a person

00:36:20.540 and i think this is actually a really good way for us to kind of read like maybe this could be

00:36:26.820 marriage at least thoughts like who are we as people like i don't know what is the nature of

00:36:30.340 humanity like why why are all these horrible things happening in my life why is she why are

00:36:36.740 only horrible things happening in her life okay i kind of joke okay so i have a joke that i'm cursed

00:36:43.400 because i have a lot of like really shitty things that happen in my life like consecutively and i'm

00:36:49.280 actually i'm like a pretty okay not the best track at life at the moment i'm like gonna have to sell 0.57

00:36:53.960 my house and shit right it's it's a whole jam right and i think and it's just you sit there

00:36:59.740 and you think to yourself why is this happening like what what why is this happening and i think 0.98

00:37:05.180 maybe for mary shelley she's trying to like articulate that she's like why are these things

00:37:08.440 happening to my life like why are these things happening and of course the creature like his

00:37:13.940 despair turns to vengeance but Mary Shelley her despair turns into this creative fuel

00:37:20.040 and it's like I don't know like I try and turn my life despair into like action like

00:37:27.120 what am I gonna do to fix things and it's like Mary Shelley is trying to sort of I think show

00:37:34.280 that through the creature like oh my god I'm such this is so hard I've got to try and fix things

00:37:40.220 but obviously the creature goes about it in the wrong way well and this just makes me think about

00:37:44.980 like it's fresh in my mind because I just recently did these Mary Wollstonecraft episodes but what I

00:37:48.800 learned about her Mary so Mary Shelley's grandfather Edward Wollstonecraft was like a

00:37:53.520 violent abusive horrible man and a lot of that came from his sense of just like injustice in

00:37:58.700 the world he was so mad at just like class division and how like he was so mad about just

00:38:05.040 society and that turned it in him it turned into like an abusive personality and like alcoholism

00:38:10.440 yes mary wallstonecraft found the same fury but for her it turned into writing books and opening

00:38:16.800 a school and trying to affect change so you can see mary shelley even though she never knew her

00:38:20.920 mom she never knew her grandfather through the monster it's it's that same thing it's just like 0.99

00:38:26.080 whoa the world is fucked up and I'm and fuck that like I'm gonna do something about it like 0.99

00:38:30.780 but also that's a very like 19 year old early 20s type thing like that the optimism and the like 0.99

00:38:38.700 I'm gonna fix this broken world it's like just I'm thinking about Mary Wollstonecraft as well

00:38:44.020 like when she was young she was just like I'm gonna stand up for abused women I'm gonna open

00:38:47.780 a school and by the time she's older she was just like the world sucks everything's terrible I'm

00:38:53.100 just gonna like settle down with this nice man like I mean I'm 34 and now I'm like the world

00:38:59.240 sucks everything is terrible I'm gonna settle down with this nice man like Mary so so Mary

00:39:06.100 Shelley's writing this book where she's in this like like you're describing just and I think a 0.55

00:39:09.780 lot of people can relate to that it's just like when terrible things happen in someone's life

00:39:14.080 and it's just like it's just bad luck really a lot of the time but for Mary Shelley she's just

00:39:18.900 interrogating and she's like but why and that's so relatable yeah yeah and like she has so many

00:39:25.920 things happening like she's you know ostracized she's broke she has you know like like children's

00:39:31.600 dying and everything like that and but she's like you know what i'm gonna keep reading i'm gonna

00:39:35.720 keep i'm gonna keep going like so it's like her life is imploding but her imagination is thriving

00:39:40.420 and it's almost like all these horrible things had to happen and like this volcano had to erupt

00:39:47.660 and block out the sun right for her to be like okay this is like a perfect storm I'm gonna sit

00:39:53.700 down and I'm gonna fucking write something like and obviously we can't know you know everything

00:40:00.740 I was writing about you know wouldn't we know that she kind of wrote the idea from like a waking 0.96

00:40:04.580 dream that she had but surely all this baggage that she had surely she must have been like all 0.98

00:40:10.100 right let's just put this down let's just put this shit down on paper let's just get it out 0.96

00:40:14.480 i like how do i like so i think maybe she's just trying to write all her grief or her anger or her 0.99

00:40:20.280 like sense of injustice of the world into this story and fueling it through this this creature

00:40:25.500 who is seen as this monster but just wants to be loved and if you see it's like please hug me

00:40:32.100 exactly exactly if you see like just talking about like the way that growing up she's in this 1.00

00:40:37.480 kind of chaotic household with all these siblings yeah um and then running off with prissy shelly

00:40:41.980 this man who like does not treat her amazingly obviously so to see like marisha's avatar in this

00:40:48.640 book not as the doctor who creates life but as this like it's this like open wound the monster

00:40:55.080 who's just like i just want intimacy why will no one give that to me and it's like if that's her

00:41:02.080 it's just like oh girl like yeah give you a hug you know and well she literally had two children

00:41:10.600 and die in one year like they're in like it's well the thing is sorry like there's a difference

00:41:15.900 between like so because there's the two different versions there's 1818 and like the 1822 version

00:41:21.240 and between 1818 and like you know like 1820 crew and stuff sorry like 1823 sorry all these extra

00:41:29.360 things happen more problems happen like you know you've already got the sun dying in malaria there's

00:41:37.320 like two children who have died in a year right she literally like sun dies malaria she gives

00:41:42.140 birth to clara who dies a few months later in venice and it's like she's just devastated

00:41:48.240 and and so like you know she goes on to write other books but then when she like returns to

00:41:54.580 frankenstein when she's like no i'm gonna revise it's like she's had so much more trauma in her

00:41:58.140 life she's like does sound dumb it's like oh yeah well trauma i can make it a better book

00:42:03.680 Well, it's just kind of like, well, like anything, you know, if you're just thinking, oh, wow, I've lived through like so much more stuff. Oh, I know how to make this like, I now know this emotion better. So I can like these moments. So what was the publishing history? So the book you said, so there's two editions of it, like she wrote it, the first draft in this like sleepover party from hell. And then, but it wasn't published right away. Like it was published. She worked on it for a while before it was published. What did you say? 1818 was the original one?

00:42:33.680 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So she started in 1816 and worked on it for a while and then

00:42:37.900 first published in 1818. Yeah. And it was published anonymously and everyone's like,

00:42:43.920 hey, Percy wrote it because, you know, patriarchy. And it was, it was actually like,

00:42:51.960 it, it was well-received. It was like, oh, this is actually really good. Like this is a really

00:42:55.860 cool book. And I guess Mary's there like, yeah, of course I read it. I read it. It's great. That's

00:43:01.020 why it's great work because I did it it wasn't Percy it was me and and you know and they're like

00:43:07.260 they moved to Italy to escape like dead and then there was like scandal and judgmental English

00:43:12.840 people when they kind of like figured out that she wrote it and and she like yeah and that's when

00:43:20.280 she gives birth to Clara who dies later in Venice and then that's when William dies of malaria in

00:43:26.700 1819 so like there's two children who were dead in a year after this book has come out right

00:43:32.520 and so she ends up writing another book in between like matilda but after afterwards she's like

00:43:40.320 dude like there's just she writes all the other things but then she goes back to it right

00:43:44.480 she goes back to writing it because it's like so it's so frankenstein's already been published and

00:43:49.780 she's like yeah you know like nowadays it's like colleen hoover's freedom mcfadden are like oh i'm

00:43:55.360 just going to re-release my book but now sprayed in pages and a special new prologue like how much

00:44:01.160 did she rewrite it between the first and the second the difference between it is not so it's

00:44:07.240 big enough for you to be like oh wow this is a very different novel but it's not different it's

00:44:11.680 not big enough in that it changes major themes but it changes the idea of it I think I change

00:44:18.540 I think in the first novel I think in 1818 she still had this semblance of hope and she still

00:44:23.920 thought okay I've had a pretty shit run right she's like I've had a pretty shit run okay I'm

00:44:29.360 like it's I have two children who were just dead in a year like oh god oh no malaria and then so 0.98

00:44:37.200 I think at this time she's like she's she's changed and she's changed as a person she's not 18 anymore

00:44:43.980 right she is older and she's had so much trauma but I think at the time you can kind of see it as

00:44:50.960 I feel like she's gotten to this point where she's like oh man this is just my life

00:44:54.940 this is just awful things happen so I think in the original novel as depressing as it is there

00:45:02.380 is sort of a semblance of hope from the author from her a sort of a sense of hope but then in

00:45:07.680 the 1822 version like sorry 1823 there is no hope there is no hope there is nothing it's like there

00:45:15.620 is no hope for Victor and it's it's changed so in the original novel Victor has opportunities to do

00:45:23.300 things differently you know he can choose to be a different parent there are there are things that

00:45:30.500 he could have done to be different and yet in the later novel the later version there is nothing that

00:45:36.380 anybody could have done to change these things and there's a sense of fate and there's this real

00:45:41.340 sense of this really depressive, depressive sense of fatalism as though there is nothing that Mary

00:45:47.980 Shelley could have done in her life to prevent all these tragedies happening. And I think it

00:45:51.860 really reflects a more mature person, but also just someone who's gone through so much fucking 1.00

00:45:56.540 shit. And it's like this other version of the novel is, fuck, this is awful. Clearly, I can't, 1.00

00:46:04.360 like nothing is going to get better so it's really depressing to actually see the differences and

00:46:11.900 my research is based on the first one because that's I guess the first you know the spark of

00:46:17.020 idea but I'm constantly referencing the second version because it's like well who was this person

00:46:24.300 like who is this person that wrote the second version what happened in her life and why is it

00:46:30.200 so different and why is it so fucking depressing so it's the sort of thing where like just to say 0.70

00:46:35.660 back to you what you said to make sure i understand it it's like in the first one

00:46:38.460 yeah she was kind of like wow well in her personal life at around the time when she's

00:46:42.840 writing this one she's like wow i've had this bad run of experiences but you know what maybe

00:46:48.620 tomorrow will be better and by the time she finishes the second one she's just like this

00:46:52.100 is just life tomorrow is never better and i've stopped even hoping for that like yeah pretty

00:46:58.640 much and it's just really really depressing and it's like it's it's interesting that she would

00:47:05.780 revise this novel though which is something that I always found super interesting it's like why

00:47:10.420 would you revise it why not write something else like she she's writing other books you know she

00:47:14.760 wrote Matilda as a second novel great novel oh so good but it's like something in her must have been

00:47:21.060 like no no I've got to like she must have felt so connected to this novel she's like I've got to

00:47:26.620 revise it I've got to like my life has changed and I always found that so interesting like the

00:47:32.560 fact that an author would be like years later it's not as if it's like the second edition like

00:47:36.600 the following year a few years have passed you know and she's older now so it's like why and

00:47:43.120 like it was clearly important enough to her to do this so like I don't know if if that was because

00:47:48.920 she had this new maturity and she was like my first version of this was too optimistic people

00:47:53.800 shouldn't feel hope i want them to know life is awful i have to change my book like that she was

00:48:00.320 so moved to do that and this is was this before or after percy shelley died the second frankenstein

00:48:05.920 so this was um before so percy shelley died like later but it's like there is three versions of it

00:48:15.560 but we're just gonna say with the two okay dude i don't this is like a niche um statement but

00:48:21.840 yeah because i didn't even watch all of game of thrones but this was in like season two or three

00:48:26.420 of game of thrones there's a part where aria stark she's been like she ran away her family was

00:48:30.520 dead she thought she was going to go to this one place where maybe things were going to turn out

00:48:34.940 and then they get there and they're like oh no actually it's been attacked sorry everyone there

00:48:37.640 is dead and she starts laughing because she's just like you know what of course that happened

00:48:42.100 like nothing good ever happens everything is shit and i'm like that's kind of where mary shelley is 0.95

00:48:46.480 she's just i feel like when percy shelley died she'd just be like of course he just died like 0.85

00:48:50.720 nothing good ever happens to me I'm Eric Shelley yeah yeah of course and it's it's like but you can

00:48:58.500 you can see that and like I think that in my life like I've had a lot of like really shitty things

00:49:02.500 happen in my life and okay my husband died right a couple years ago it was really depressing

00:49:08.720 and I was like oh man this is awful like life is is horrible but you can understand why your

00:49:15.620 thoughts would change you know you don't understand how you're thinking about life changes and like

00:49:20.220 you know the way that my life changed after my husband passed away was like

00:49:24.420 pretty radically different and that changed my writing even just my fiction and my thoughts

00:49:29.280 and so but if you can imagine this this is Mary Shelley and she's already had like a whole life

00:49:34.120 before she's 30 she's already had this whole crazy life and you can understand why she would

00:49:39.880 want to revise these things and want to rethink about it and think about her life because it's

00:49:45.960 like yeah it's depressing I'm just curious because so between the two Frankenstein versions

00:49:51.280 you said she wrote this book called Matilda can you just briefly tell us what like the plot of

00:49:56.420 that is because I've I've not I'm not familiar with that yeah so Matilda is like what if trauma

00:50:03.260 but they could incest okay okay it's so good though so Matilda was actually published posthumously

00:50:09.940 because like William like her dad was like um no are you serious I'm not publishing this okay so

00:50:16.440 she wrote this between the two Frankensteins but like it was not yeah yeah this was yeah this was

00:50:20.940 written and so we know it's we think it's written between like 1819 and 1820 so really early but

00:50:28.080 didn't come out when she was alive so it's basically about this girl named Matilda and

00:50:33.420 her dad confesses that he's in love with her and then he dies so she she spends the rest of the

00:50:38.700 wandering around being like beautifully miserable right it's like it's just like how life it's sort

00:50:44.920 of like not all what happens in the plot of matilda right not a lot happens but it's so it's so

00:50:51.240 depressing and it's like it's gothic and it's tragic and it was like way too dark for a dad

00:50:55.840 who was like hey honey sweetheart no one needs to read this no one needs to read this honey

00:51:00.780 so he refused to publish it but like maybe he saw himself in there i don't know i don't know

00:51:07.400 well i feel like well it's interesting though so it's like you've got another frankenstein's

00:51:11.640 monster adjacent yeah tragic sad abandoned person just sort of like wandering around wishing for

00:51:18.740 love exactly and like things happen there is a plot clearly but it's like the it's just scott

00:51:25.820 stuff like it's just it's a lot of daddy issues right it's a lot of daddy issues a lot of grief

00:51:29.760 and isolation and like victorian therapy so like wandering into wilderness and dying dramatically 0.85

00:51:35.360 oh true yeah okay yeah yeah yeah but it's really good and it's so sad and it's so fucking depressing

00:51:42.080 because it's like you can see this as for me it's like maybe she's trying to get like her dad to

00:51:49.740 be like hey can you please like pay attention to me can you please give me like some love

00:51:54.100 and a lot of people are like hey but there's incest in the book oh but it's like dude there's

00:52:01.180 incest everywhere in writing and fiction during these times right everyone's married to cousins

00:52:07.160 in in real life in this era yeah incest not like a lot more common than it is now i would say

00:52:14.080 but is that in terms of like so would matilda be considered gothic fiction as well in your opinion

00:52:19.660 yeah yeah yeah matilda is definitely got like gothic fiction and it's just it's so bleak and

00:52:26.140 it's so dark and i think it was really interesting because people saw this and they were like oh hey

00:52:31.000 like that's by the author of Mary Shelley and but a lot of people it wasn't as popular

00:52:38.600 and still now it wasn't as popular but the thing is it didn't come out right okay

00:52:43.920 Mary Shelley's second novel did not come out until 1959 like not even joking 1959 is when

00:52:53.720 it was published because people were like oh man it's so it's oh it's so dark it's all these

00:52:59.380 incest and suicide and it's a lot of suicide well you know what mary shelley's life a lot of people

00:53:06.400 she knew there was a lot of suicide in her life yeah i actually think it was like when i when i

00:53:12.340 first read like matilda i was like oh god this is so fucking depressing and in the book it's like

00:53:18.260 so matilda we're like okay that's clearly mary matilda's father is in there clearly when godwin

00:53:23.660 then there's the poet woodville clearly percy shelley it's got a really good use of like

00:53:30.320 unreliable narrators and like confessional kind of style writing which godwin used so i feel like

00:53:38.280 maybe mary shelley was trying to broaden her writing ability as well she's like i'm going

00:53:42.560 to try something different i'm going to get some like i'm going to use some of my dad's kind of

00:53:46.160 techniques in his writing and so like she's writing this because she's so sad because like

00:53:51.820 Clara has like died in like 1818 and then William has died in 1819 and you know she's depressed

00:54:01.540 she's distanced herself like emotionally and like from everyone and so she's writing this novel and

00:54:08.540 it's like it's just so sad it's just so sad but it's like a lot of people are like maybe it's a

00:54:17.480 metaphor for what happens when like you cut you know women actually just do things themselves like

00:54:24.020 they're it's like if you look it up a lot of people say it's a metaphor for like women who 0.95

00:54:28.540 are like you know that they're ignorant and are gonna follow their own heart because they have

00:54:35.300 money from like a male benefactor and everything like that but it's like no man like it is 0.95

00:54:40.940 just depressing it's so depressing and it's just like it's this patriarchal control over it as

00:54:49.720 well it's like and it's it's actually been seen as like redefining kind of gothic kind of

00:54:56.500 narratives I guess because it has this female narrator and so obviously in Frankenstein when

00:55:03.740 my like in in my research I'm looking at Victor as a woman like I'm looking at as Victor as like

00:55:09.240 mother where in you know Matilda it's it's a woman it's it's a it's a woman and she it's it's

00:55:17.180 about her and it's like she's this powerful person and so a lot of people were like this is really

00:55:26.300 weird what this is like a powerful female gothic narrative a book what this is really weird and

00:55:32.660 it's like the story like narrator has such control over her life which it makes it even more

00:55:40.820 depressing because it's still such a depressing book and it makes it depressing because Mary

00:55:45.660 Shelley had no control over these things in her life well and I'm just thinking too like between

00:55:49.640 like Mary Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft were both to me reading about them they both were ahead of 1.00

00:55:55.760 their time in a way that makes me sad because they were they got it they're like a woman should be

00:56:01.220 able to live independently and this and this and this. And they're like, so I'm going to live like 1.00

00:56:04.560 that. But it's like society is not ready for that. And so you're just going to get beaten down. Like

00:56:09.460 they would in 2025, like God knows there's shitty things happening everywhere. But at the same

00:56:15.420 point, it's like, well, we, women can own property and no fault divorce and bank accounts and like 1.00

00:56:21.520 things like they were like, Oh, women should be able to do all these things. So I'm just going 0.60

00:56:27.200 to act as though that's already true, but it's like, but it's not. And everyone's going to just

00:56:30.240 like think you're a whore and exactly depressing and it just sounds like that book reminds me of 0.98

00:56:35.660 those sorts of themes too where it's like a really strong powerful woman in this era still 0.99

00:56:39.840 has a shitty life like exactly yeah and it's the thing that's it annoys me as well is because of

00:56:46.060 how much her dad was like no i'm not like i'm not gonna help you with this book and he's like 0.68

00:56:52.860 it's incest that's like it's not it's i don't think it is i literally i don't think it's actually

00:56:58.460 about that like it's just me when I read it I read it as this really long suicide letter

00:57:04.340 I don't know it's just so sad because it's like this this story as this like this you know as

00:57:12.740 the woman's like life can continues it's like it gets sadder and sadder and sadder and she's just

00:57:18.040 writing about how much she hates everything and how much she just would be easy to die and I'm like

00:57:22.160 this just feels like a suicide letter and it's like why did you not like thorium godwin why did

00:57:28.880 you not say this in your child like how could you not read this and be like hey like yeah if this

00:57:35.040 is your daughter you could be like like mary i'm not going to publish this but also come over have

00:57:40.440 a cup of tea like i'm gonna give you a hug yeah like yeah girl are you okay like this book is a

00:57:47.440 cry for help Mary Shelley yeah and it's like even the novel itself it's got a very loose plot it's

00:57:53.680 a bit stereotypical it's like the characters are a bit over exaggerated but it's like it's sort of

00:58:01.300 like a situational story as in not a lot actually happens like just it's just like a story of like

00:58:06.920 not like a day in a life in a way but not a lot actually happens and even her dad was like hey

00:58:13.180 even the plot ship and it's like Mary Shelley's like hey it's not even about that it's kind of

00:58:19.100 like I'm really sad can you please like you know I've literally put my character my main characters

00:58:24.460 as her William Godwin and Percy Shelley can like can you maybe look at me and maybe kind of say hey

00:58:31.000 how are you going but this this also reminds me again just because I'm coming up these Mary

00:58:35.760 Wollstonecraft episodes I'm just like that's so William Godwin you know like when he's with

00:58:39.920 Mary Wollstonecraft and and she was just like hey could you read my book and tell you tell me what

00:58:44.060 you think and he's like well actually your grammar is terrible it's like oh my god yeah she wrote

00:58:48.040 that whole essay Mary Wollstonecraft about like why grammar isn't as important as like the meaning

00:58:52.700 of your writing and and Willem Godwin was like I'm just gonna not publish that and the collected

00:58:57.680 writing of Mary Wollstonecraft because she was wrong she was like so the fact that his daughter

00:59:02.180 is like oh I wrote this like interesting book that's like challenging things he's like yeah

00:59:05.380 no sorry no i'm not gonna publish that because that it's a really good it's like william godwin

00:59:11.500 is like of the of the men i've talked about on this podcast who are husbands or fathers of people

00:59:16.720 he's like better than a lot of them but he's he's not quite getting over the the finish line of like

00:59:23.120 actually being helpful exactly and like as a parent as a father who wasn't i guess you know

00:59:31.040 not trying to like be so typical of time but you know alcohol issues like when poor where they

00:59:36.000 lived like he could have been a really horrible life and he could have been as probably as shitty

00:59:40.980 as Mary Wollstonecraft's father right and he wasn't and he was there and he's like no I'm 0.52

00:59:45.520 gonna make sure my child has education I'm gonna make sure that she's like smart and you know my

00:59:50.400 kids are gonna be like super intelligent and he was so fond of her and he would like show her

00:59:55.200 around he's like this is Mary oh my god she's great yeah there's another girl finding over

00:59:59.160 whatever this is Mary but it's like that your child isn't just this kind of progeny you tell

01:00:06.600 the person right yeah he never this is an actual girl he never really figured that part out honestly

01:00:11.860 even the fact that he like married Mary Jane as much as she was like a evil stepmother it's like

01:00:16.000 he was like I can't parent these children by myself I'm going to find a mother he's like oh

01:00:20.500 the woman next door she has no husband and she's kids already clearly she's got the skills it's

01:00:24.180 like he was he was doing the best he could which just was not enough but more than more than many

01:00:30.440 so i don't know i think i yeah like like more than more than many still shitty but it's just

01:00:36.380 like but it's like maybe he should like me think about his child and like what she's writing

01:00:42.660 was like what is my daughter writing why is she writing this maybe you should like 0.99

01:00:46.980 look into it a bit more but like but no as i said he's like honey no one needs to read this shit 0.97

01:00:52.320 no so it would have been really heartbreaking and awful absolutely absolutely so like the main thing

01:00:58.700 i wanted to talk to you today is like frankenstein because that's obviously your research

01:01:01.780 yeah in terms of like mary shelley's like body of work um like frankenstein is the best known

01:01:09.460 thing she wrote she wrote matilda obviously although it wasn't published later she also did

01:01:14.020 what was it it was like a dystopian novel i forget what it's called yeah so there's so after after

01:01:21.000 Matilda there's like Valperger then there's like The Last Man, Perkin Warbeck, Lodor, Faulkner

01:01:27.320 and then she wrote travel books and biographies so she has quite a lot of books like quite a lot

01:01:34.160 of novels that but people just don't know about it because it's either not that they're not as

01:01:38.780 good but they're very different she wrote a lot of very different things which I think makes us

01:01:44.380 stand out even more it's not all the same kind of like sci-fi tragic things like tragedy but like

01:01:50.840 so different so yeah so after she wrote matilda it was like 1823 she wrote valpurga and i didn't

01:01:59.520 read valpurga until a few years ago actually um and i was like bad claire bad merger fan how dare

01:02:05.000 you call yourself a fan i just hadn't read it and it's like it's basically about like it's set in

01:02:11.340 like renaissance italy and it's like this badass novel woman who's trying to like maintain her

01:02:15.300 independence while being surrounded by like power hungry men what it's basically like basically

01:02:20.840 game of thrones meets like mary shelley's like political feminism and it's a lot of critics

01:02:27.180 were like this is like too intellectual and i'm like so this is really saying a woman made me

01:02:32.120 feel stupid and i didn't like it and it's like but it's a really feminist like a powerful book 0.92

01:02:39.940 and it's like it's really cool because that like people just don't know about these these other

01:02:45.500 bits of this these other stories of hers um and then obviously a lot of people know the last man

01:02:51.680 which was 1826 I think in 25 in 26 and but the last man is so sad okay the last man is like

01:03:01.780 so imagine the apocalypse right the world is ended in plague everyone dies so she wrote this

01:03:08.920 after percy drowned and byron died so it's basically her grief and novel so she everyone's

01:03:13.960 coughing the the last man she is the last man because everyone she loved is officially dead

01:03:19.400 yeah yeah and so the last man is sort of like it's not her last book right but it's like she's

01:03:25.380 sort of gone to this point where everyone who is so important in her life and when you think about

01:03:29.920 sort of like the the shelly gang which is how i like to call them they're the real shelly gang

01:03:34.500 not ned shelly everyone's like oh the kelly gang no shelly gang shelly gang the shelly gang

01:03:40.140 but yeah just as dangerous yeah but everyone's dead right and so basically the last man is like

01:03:48.260 her grief and you know she's sort of like a walking like she's a self-insert so she's like

01:03:54.740 watching civilization crumble and like all the friends perish everyone dies in the story one by

01:04:00.860 one and it's like it made me think of like again this is like all the children dying one by one

01:04:07.600 all their friends dying one by one like percy drowning byron dying and it's like bleak and

01:04:13.260 tragic and kind of a bit metal it's got these scenes of loneliness and death and it's like

01:04:18.180 this idea of you know being the last one alive actually sucks you know but the thing is the

01:04:24.960 critics hated it critics were like oh my god it's too depressing and and she's and it's basically

01:04:30.980 them saying hey you're bumming us out while she's there like holding her dead husband's heart like

01:04:35.260 oh my god i'm so sad and they're like stop being too sad you're too goth for us way too goth for

01:04:41.340 us um and it actually took me to get into the last man because it's so different again it's

01:04:47.640 different again and it's not really your average gothic novel like it's not really like i some

01:04:54.540 people who've read frankenstein and then they say they tried to read the last man and they couldn't

01:04:57.880 read it because they said it was boring the beginning of it so i understand it the beginning

01:05:02.040 is a bit boring sorry mary it's a bit boring but once you get into it it's a good it's so sad

01:05:08.540 and it's like all this grief wrapped up into this book of oh my god this is everyone is dead and i'm

01:05:17.080 just stuck here with this kid i think it's like i'm just trying to like comparing her to someone

01:05:23.400 who lived at around the same time Jane Austen who if you're like I like Pride and Prejudice what

01:05:29.200 else has Jane Austen written Sense and Sensibility great Mansfield Park okay Emma it's it's like

01:05:34.880 people read Frankenstein and they're like what else did she write did she also write Dracula

01:05:38.500 did she also write like the Wolfman it's like no like so there are commonalities between her book

01:05:44.740 which is just like the metaphor and the just the like nihilistic goth of it all but when you read

01:05:50.580 frankenstein it's like you want to read a book i think anyone it's like if you listen to an album

01:05:55.000 by a singer you're like oh what other albums do they do it's like you expect it to all be the same

01:05:59.700 genre so but no but this is what i really like about marichelle because i'm like the book off

01:06:05.940 that she wrote like um it's like perk and warbeck it's like like a history i just called that like

01:06:10.600 the princess yeah yeah it's like yeah yeah yeah um but it's like yeah he claims to be like the

01:06:17.080 lost prince but she's like what if history but sexy and sad so she writes this she writes him

01:06:23.380 as like this sympathetic political tragedy about like identity and like ambition and betrayal

01:06:27.860 yeah in terms of like mary shelley and like the non-stop trauma of her first i want to say

01:06:34.720 30 years of life she like she she kept writing after that she kept being alive after that so

01:06:44.300 like she didn't stop or really give up so in a way it's kind of like she lived through all this

01:06:52.140 and that's that's sort of motivational or something yeah and that's why i think people

01:06:58.020 need to be a bit more like nicer and actually look at like what these stories are about and

01:07:02.140 it's like hey i'm not just gonna sit here and rehash the same shit over and over again because

01:07:07.000 she's basically like i'm not gonna sit here and like wallow in misery yes like my life is probably 0.87

01:07:12.820 shit right like me but she's like I'm not gonna sit here I'm gonna like I'm gonna research things

01:07:18.500 I'm gonna travel I'm gonna read things I'm gonna like learn more about I'm gonna learn about things

01:07:23.280 you know and but I do think that all of her stories have like the same sort of themes you

01:07:30.440 know and she constantly wrote and like when she wrote even like a lodol after Perkin like

01:07:35.720 Warbeck she's like she's still writing about men like bad men and the women who have to clean up

01:07:40.600 their nesses but it's like it's similar things but they're different and it's really interesting

01:07:46.760 to see like how she is growing up and how she's navigating her own life and how her thoughts

01:07:50.960 have changed um and we have like lodore which was in like 1835 and basically it's just saying 1.00

01:07:57.180 society sucks you know how you survive being a single mother in like a world designed by idiots 0.94

01:08:02.560 i wonder where she got that inspiration from right a timeless a timeless theme but it's it's 1.00

01:08:09.180 it's interesting like during her life like obviously she wrote these books like they were

01:08:12.920 published like she was ranking living as a writer etc but it's like it's sort of a weird thing sort

01:08:19.140 of like a child star where it's like she wrote Frankenstein at such a young age that's all

01:08:23.000 most people know that she ever did but it's like no she didn't stop like she's not like a one-hit

01:08:29.320 wonder like she's like if you I don't know like Kirsten Dunst it's like yeah she was a child star

01:08:34.880 but she kept doing quality work like it's not just somebody exactly who was in one sitcom once

01:08:39.800 but it's kind of people don't know about the rest of her work yeah and like Mary Shelley writes seven

01:08:45.640 books like the last one was like Faulkner and like at the time she's like done with everyone's

01:08:50.860 nonsense right and like the critics didn't get it as usual she's got she's got like murder and

01:08:56.440 secrets forgiveness it's like think gothic therapy like session like gothic therapy and people like

01:09:03.660 you know this is this isn't what we want we want frankenstein and it's like but it's there like

01:09:10.080 it's basically got like found family and healing and it's like saying like i forgive you through

01:09:14.800 like gritted teeth like oh i hate you but forgive you and like she wrote this and like she even

01:09:20.500 wrote like travel books and memoirs and biographies and she's like writing about historical

01:09:25.280 women and she's like basically hustling despite losing everyone she loved and she's like the

01:09:31.460 gothic queen of like greece and like perseverance and critics are like yeah but we really liked

01:09:35.720 frankenstein and so you should like write that again it's just like i'm trying to think of i

01:09:40.760 don't know anything i don't know i'm trying like lil nas x or something who i hope who i hope is

01:09:47.420 doing well i know he's like but if people just like why why aren't you doing old town road again

01:09:52.100 it's like because he was really i think he was like 19 when he wrote that it's like because that

01:09:57.420 was one song i wrote once and these are the other things it's like but could you do old town road

01:10:01.480 like no like time has passed yeah i know i know and it's just it's really interesting as well

01:10:10.740 because it's like we have this very she's such an and a witchy observer she's she observes these

01:10:18.320 things and there's a lot of humor like sprinkled within grief there's a lot of really like dry

01:10:24.160 observations about things and like I would love to like get her in a room with like Jane Austen 0.96

01:10:31.940 and have them like just gossip about shit because I reckon Mary would have been a great gossip 0.94

01:10:35.960 because a lot of her stories are like she's writing about things you know she's writing 0.99

01:10:40.380 about society she's writing about like Victorian society's nonsense you know she's writing about

01:10:46.020 these nonsense in her life and all these people that the experiences that she's had where she's 0.99

01:10:50.360 like fuck this this is shit you know and I just I guess I wish that a lot of people would sort of 0.99

01:10:57.340 like look more into her writing and her stories and think well she's more than Frankenstein 0.99

01:11:03.680 although Frankenstein is amazing clearly I'm gonna say comma if you haven't read Frankenstein

01:11:09.500 start with that and but don't stop but don't stop with that like read Frankenstein for sure

01:11:15.100 because it's like it's like a story that we all feel like oh I know the story of Frankenstein

01:11:18.400 it's like do you or do you just know like Count Chocula like the breakfast cereal like or I guess

01:11:23.860 Frankenberry is the breakfast cereal but it's like actually read that book it's short you can do it

01:11:29.140 and then and then continue on that's what I would say yeah yeah and just continue because it's like

01:11:36.320 all of her stories have elements of her basically she puts herself in all the stories and a lot of

01:11:42.460 people did back then as well like a lot of a lot of fiction was basically biography that's and 1.00

01:11:47.260 that's like a lot of women when they would write you know that's part of the kind of the female 1.00

01:11:52.300 gothic they're writing about themselves if they're finding a way to put themselves into the narrative 1.00

01:11:56.520 because they feel like they're not part of the narrative of life they're not part of the narrative

01:12:00.480 of outside their life so she's like putting herself into this story she's trying to just

01:12:05.480 show that hey i'm here i'm writing and it's just but it's just funny because it's like she wrote

01:12:11.580 so much so much people like oh frankenstein i've heard of that it's like but but have you read

01:12:17.700 perkin roback i can't like i keep trying to think of examples but you know there's like certain

01:12:23.900 actors who when they go for it i don't know like live tyler or somebody and it's just like could

01:12:29.140 you not ask me about lord of the rings like i've done one gazillion but but yeah but when you were

01:12:35.120 arwen like or whatever like it's just like i i don't know any anyone who's but it's like there's

01:12:41.640 something so there's a reason why frankenstein people loved it at that time why people still

01:12:46.740 love it now and i think part of it is kind of what you're decoding in your research which is like

01:12:51.940 because it's not just a horror story about like reanimating corpse like there's such relatable

01:12:58.240 like elemental emotions that just like anyone can relate to yeah and I think there are so many

01:13:06.900 things and like unpacking it as like a thesis as like a PhD there's so many things that you can

01:13:11.400 you can pick apart and explore you know and there's so many different aspects of the story

01:13:17.800 you've got stuff about like romanticism you've got enlightenment you've got just women's functions

01:13:22.320 and like the novel like that's the whole thing in itself like the way women are treated and

01:13:26.340 you have ideas of like parental failure obviously what I'm looking into and then you can discuss it

01:13:32.040 in relation to like other gothic novels right and what people were writing about at that time as well

01:13:37.540 like Jane Austen you know Northanger Abbey being like there are so many other things that you can

01:13:43.080 compare it to and not compare it in a bad way but just be like wow this fits so well in like

01:13:49.320 historically gothic novels historically horror things there is just so much you can unpack from

01:13:55.920 it and i guess that's why i really love studying it and it's like thanks gal pal for your horrible

01:14:02.200 trauma it's so interesting you know um because like i'm studying like the gothic you know the

01:14:10.900 gothic is about like fear of the unknown power entrapment psychological conflict and you've got

01:14:16.340 like the sublime like aura and terror over like vast and imposing kind of forces you know you've

01:14:22.640 got those all these elements in this kind of like book and it's like of course you're gonna keep

01:14:27.920 going over it of course you're gonna keep sort of like picking things out of it because it's

01:14:32.060 constantly revealing itself it's constantly revealing new layers which is why it's just

01:14:36.680 so interesting especially as an academic oh thank you so much Claire for I mean a contacting me and

01:14:43.340 suggesting that yourself as a guest but be like thank you thank you so much for this conversation

01:14:49.100 because I think it was like I really was really looking forward to this and I think it's such an

01:14:53.460 important part of just like Mary Shelley had this like goth wild bananas life but like her legacy

01:14:59.720 as a writer I think is maybe sometimes sidelined she's just like oh she wrote Frankenstein like

01:15:05.540 she had this like sleepover party the end where it's like no but like take her work seriously and

01:15:09.580 I think it's so great that you're looking into it yeah well she's just a really cool great person

01:15:14.800 and I'm always saying my gal pal Mary Shelley and everybody in my office think I'm a freak

01:15:18.740 because I may refer to her as a real person who's right here I do that constantly about everyone

01:15:24.800 I've ever done a podcast I'm like my girl Marie Antoinette how dare you say that about like oh

01:15:29.960 my god she's my personal friend yeah but exactly it's what I do all the time my gal pal Mary um

01:15:35.380 but just she's just such an interesting person it's just been really cool just to talk about it

01:15:39.840 and i just think it's so cool that there's this resurgence and who was this person and like

01:15:45.220 the mary shelley gang as well you know the shelley gang the shelley gang like there was such an

01:15:51.540 interesting group of people and i'm just so excited that there's this whole new resurgence 0.94

01:15:55.680 about it and finding out who these people were and the idiots that mary had to deal with that's 0.94

01:16:02.040 that's it i don't think she wanted to be the mom friend but i think she saw that no one else was 0.98

01:16:07.940 gonna like make sure their bills were paid so exactly so she's like you know what I have to

01:16:13.320 keep writing epics I have to keep writing all these things and I'm gonna keep writing and feed

01:16:18.160 my family and yes my children may die but I'm going to keep writing and keep going and I love

01:16:22.980 that that feeling of perseverance I love that she had this ambition and she's just like no I've got

01:16:30.280 this ambition I'm gonna like keep going I'm gonna keep fighting I'm gonna keep fighting a good fight

01:16:34.100 because my husband sucks and my kids are dying i'm sad well and also i think the fact like her 0.77

01:16:39.940 books are so profoundly sad obviously because she felt profound sadness in her life but also it's 0.98

01:16:44.640 just like yeah she felt that and she wrote a book about it and maybe that helped her process it so

01:16:49.680 she could you know go on and write the next book that is maybe going to be like a sexy murder

01:16:54.200 mystery or whatever like it doesn't mean that she's walking around yeah weeping 24 hours a day

01:16:59.700 but it's like she felt these deep emotions she turned them into these great books and then she

01:17:06.000 you know set up the next day and she's like what will we have for breakfast like

01:17:09.120 so I find that motivating too like she just kept going yeah yeah yeah I find it so interesting and

01:17:15.100 it's just she's just this really I I really love learning about her because there's always more

01:17:20.780 things that you can find out about it and about the life and because I think because she was around

01:17:25.860 during a time when she was in this gang like there are so many like amazing literary people

01:17:33.820 like who she was friends with there are so many amazing stories that came out of this time period

01:17:38.960 and because of these circumstances it happened so I'm just endlessly finding out more things about

01:17:43.780 her and she's just she's just a cool person and I really wish I could be like hey Mary I'm really

01:17:50.260 sorry your life is shit but you're really cool so she's just yeah no there's she's awesome i'm

01:17:57.520 looking something up because i just want to mention something that i just remembered 0.97

01:18:00.480 yeah um hold please do do do and it's so i have written a book like mary shelley i'm an author

01:18:10.100 yeah so it's called yes i know hopefully i don't have any word about if or when it will be coming

01:18:16.180 out in australia but i hope it will be it better it better be um i'm pretty excited but one of the

01:18:23.000 things that i have on the like i submitted this to my editor and i was like can we put these i

01:18:27.440 don't know if they're going to be on the cover of the book or not but like so my book is about

01:18:31.160 someone who lived at the same time as mary shelley carolina brunswick and mary shelley was a fan of

01:18:37.120 hers i want to mention so i have all these quotes from like people of the time about carolina

01:18:42.700 of Brunswick and one of them is Mary Shelley and I'm just bringing it up here oh my god that's so

01:18:47.640 cool I didn't even know that like I knew you were writing about Caroline Brunswick which is awesome

01:18:51.420 but it's so cool when I learn about like Mary Shelley knowing these people well no it's like

01:18:56.200 everybody like Percy Shelley like wrote a play that was like criticizing George IV so it's like

01:19:02.680 good for you you're on the right side of that sir Byron supported Caroline like everybody had

01:19:08.340 an opinion anyway so what mary shelley said is i wish with all my heart downfall to her enemies

01:19:15.240 that's what she said about carolina brunswick carolina brunswick's enemies being the king

01:19:21.580 and the royal family and the government so to say it again mary shelley said i wish with all

01:19:27.860 my heart downfall to her enemies hell yeah mary shelley and but i mean you know she grew up with

01:19:33.060 an anarchist father so down with the government too she was she was never really pro-monarchy

01:19:37.280 type girly but i was just i was so happy to see that she weighed in and that that was what she

01:19:41.840 said yeah that's really cool you can find a connection to your own research no i love it

01:19:46.420 everybody in this like regency era was writing about everybody else in the regency era it's

01:19:51.860 just gossip yeah exactly well that's what i mean that's why i'm like oh she would have been found

01:19:55.140 at a party yeah yeah yeah yeah it would have been really cool anyway thank you so much for taking

01:20:00.260 the time to talk to me this was a fantastic conversation do you um do you have anything

01:20:05.200 where people can follow you on social media or a website or a podcast or like anything you want to

01:20:10.740 share to all your new fans oh my new fans thank you so much if you want to like give me checks

01:20:16.540 i'll give you my address um and i have a book so um so it's called a vindication of monsters

01:20:23.100 um essays on mary wilson graft and mary shelly oh my god which once like which won some awards

01:20:29.500 adding that to my car i didn't even know that amazing okay yeah so i i want to um so i want

01:20:34.860 a shadows award i won a ditmar award and it was shortlisted for a brand stroker award girl which

01:20:39.120 is international which is really cool oh my god yeah yeah so i won cool awards okay yeah yeah and

01:20:44.960 basically it's um it's a collection of essays but i split it into like it's not very like it's not a

01:20:52.620 academic like okay it's an academic book but it's really easy reading like the way that i've gotten

01:20:59.000 people to write it and the way that i was editing it it's like a really casual easy reading about

01:21:03.420 Mary Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft and everybody in between so that's that's my book that won some

01:21:09.720 awards and it's called what again tell it make sure everyone knows it's called A Vindication

01:21:14.360 of Monsters Essays on Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley so that's very cool um and I write

01:21:22.400 fiction I'm like a horror writer so I write a lot of fiction and um I write a lot of non-fiction

01:21:27.940 i write for this on magazine um aurealis so it's like australia's biggest sci-fi and fantasy kind

01:21:34.880 of it's like it's it's the longest running semi-pro like magazine i've been writing for

01:21:40.340 them for about like 12 years now and i write a lot of pop culture articles that i but i write

01:21:45.560 i've just finishing a series on mary joey and on frankenstein um frankenstein films yeah so

01:21:52.900 yeah yeah so i write a lot of that i write a lot of pop culture but yeah my website you

01:21:57.920 can like check it out and I'm writing my novel that's been about eight years now writing my

01:22:03.240 novel um but yeah I usually write horror usually like body horror I mean in like Mary Shelley

01:22:11.540 paved the way for us all exactly exactly so you can look me up and find me there um

01:22:17.840 and yeah at the moment I've just been doing my research this PhD stuff because it's like

01:22:24.620 it takes over your life I'm sure it does yeah I do yeah but I do also have a podcast as well

01:22:30.580 um which is very cool so basically I am not the best at podcasting

01:22:38.540 it's called sword sorcery and synthesizers an 80s fantasy podcast and I day everyone to record

01:22:45.580 themselves saying that five times really fast sword sorcery and synthesizers yeah my god that

01:22:52.060 was the 80s fantasy that's really hard okay but like what do you like you could you could type

01:22:57.100 it easily into your podcast app you don't have to say yeah yeah yeah no no no so a friend of

01:23:02.840 mine then we look into like um fantasy movies of the 80s and but a lot of um random movies not

01:23:08.940 like we do some well-known movies but we have an episode on gothic right gothic is a movie

01:23:14.240 listeners it's like a 1980s horror movie about mary shelley writing frankenstein

01:23:20.360 exactly so if you know that movie then you will know the type of films that we cover on our

01:23:26.840 podcast so yeah if you just find me there i'm like facebook i don't have any like author pages

01:23:33.880 because i'm not that famous and if you're interested in marie shelley let me know

01:23:38.400 interested in the female gothic i will totally chew your ear off forever about my girl marie

01:23:42.920 shelley how about your close personal friend marie shelley yeah she's just just she's coming

01:23:48.640 over later all right i'm just getting like you know a ouija board i'm gonna like invite her over

01:23:53.160 oh my gosh we're gonna have a great time yeah just just let her know that like we all love her

01:23:57.700 and we're pulling for her and i will and we know that she wrote more than just one book

01:24:02.380 yes that's that's the main thing that if anyone wants to like take anything out of this

01:24:07.320 is she wrote more than one book and her books are great and please read matilda like uh everyone

01:24:13.380 needs to read Matilda because it's just like it's so good yeah it's so bloody good so let's read it

01:24:21.660 well thank you so much read my stuff read Claire's books read Matilda pre-order my book

01:24:26.600 read Frankenstein yes like you've got a lot of assignments listeners but I feel like you're all

01:24:30.760 up to it and you can accomplish this all yes exactly thank you so much Claire thank you so

01:24:37.580 much. It was awesome. So I want to let you know, if you want to follow Clara Fitzpatrick to just

01:24:46.160 to find links to all the articles that she's written, um, things about the books that she's

01:24:50.260 written, her, the work that she's working on about for her PhD thesis, she has a website,

01:24:55.000 which I'm putting the link to it in the show notes as well, because it's kind of a confusing

01:24:59.380 website address to say, but I'll say it. It's clairefitzpatrickcom.wordpress.com.

01:25:07.400 So there's not a com in the first one. It's clairefitzpatrickcom.wordpress.com. I will put

01:25:13.160 a link in the show notes. You can get to this beautiful, very gothic looking website that has

01:25:17.400 links to all of Claire's work. So you can learn more about her. And as she said, if you want to

01:25:22.000 contact her and just be like, I also love Mary Shelley. I think she'd love to get a message like

01:25:25.820 that too this is a vulgar history podcast my name is ann foster it's mary shelley month and next week

01:25:32.000 i have a surprise episode about somebody else who who was involved in the life of mary shelley

01:25:38.520 who is a person and who is going to be the beyond appropriate guest we're going to have to talk

01:25:43.520 about this person um you will find out next week it's our i guess official halloween special episode

01:25:49.520 is next week i will say trigger warning for this next episode if you know you know that's who we're

01:25:54.960 talking about. And in the meantime, I too, like Claire, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Mary Shelley,

01:26:01.300 am an author. My first book, Rebel of the Regency, The Scandalous Saga of Carolina Brunswick,

01:26:05.920 Britain's Uncrowned Queen, is coming out in Canada and the US, coming up next year, February.

01:26:12.980 I hope to have news about people buying it. Like I said in the interview, I hope it'll be

01:26:16.560 available in Australia and the UK and Ireland and Spain and all the other places where I know

01:26:22.280 there's listeners listening from. And as soon as I have news about that, I will let you know,

01:26:26.260 but I do know it's available to pre-order in Canada and the U S as a book, an ebook and an

01:26:31.000 audio book. And I'll have news about who will be reading the audio book coming at you soon as well.

01:26:36.560 Anyway, you can get all the information about my book at rebel of the regency.com. That's a

01:26:41.260 rebel of the regency.com. There's a link there to buy it from lots of major online retailers,

01:26:46.520 but also if you're just in a, in a city with a nice independent bookstore, you can stroll in

01:26:51.380 or email them or whatever you do, call them if you like that. And just say, hi, I'd like to

01:26:56.200 pre-order Rebel of the Regency by Ann Foster, and they will help you do that, I'm sure. And you can

01:27:02.140 do that once you pre-order it, you'll get some sort of receipt or email or confirmation, presumably.

01:27:08.500 And when you get that, send that to me, and then I will give you treats. For anyone who pre-orders

01:27:13.100 my book, I am providing three fun free treats as a reward or as a gift for you for having bought

01:27:20.220 my book and the things you will get is a free one-year membership to my sub stack like newsletter

01:27:25.280 where i write essays about people from history including a recent one about mary shelley you

01:27:30.380 can also get a free one-year membership to my patreon which is where i well the the membership

01:27:36.280 you get when you show me the receipt is that you get the six dollar a month patreon membership but

01:27:41.880 for free and that's where you get to hear things like my bonus episodes vulgar peace theater where

01:27:47.740 I talk about movies with my friends Lana Wood Johnson and Alison Epstein. Our most recent

01:27:52.360 episode that just came out as well is we talk about Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette movie,

01:27:57.580 and we have a Halloween episode coming up as well for that. And then also when you're at that level

01:28:02.940 of my Patreon, you can join our Discord and we just have a nice time. Also, I do want to mention

01:28:08.940 Patreon, Patreon. Anyway, this is where I'm doing a lot of my posting lately because

01:28:13.080 it just seems like in this current time in the social media landscape that's the way that i can

01:28:19.780 post stuff and people who want to see my updates actually see them instead of falling victim to

01:28:24.420 various algorithms anyway you can join my patreon for free and then you can see all of my updates

01:28:30.120 and pictures and value added content i'm putting their videos and things and then if you want to

01:28:36.000 join the patreon if you would like to have a paid membership for mary shelley month in honor of our

01:28:41.920 goth queen icon. I am running a sale. So it's 25% off annual memberships to my Patreon and

01:28:49.860 a membership to get the ad free episodes of over history. It's a dollar a month, 25% off

01:28:56.660 means it's 75 cents a month. So something to consider maybe as a gift for somebody else.

01:29:01.820 You can also do that. Anyway, I think those are all my announcements. I have to tell you

01:29:06.240 we'll be back next week with the scariest most horrifying story of the person who in all of

01:29:14.140 mary shelley's life i find the most disturbing you might be able to guess who that will be but

01:29:21.480 maybe you can't because there's a lot of really horrifying people in her life anyway next week

01:29:25.480 halloween special very special guest don't miss it and until next time keep your pants on and your

01:29:31.280 hits out.

01:29:33.640 Vulgar History is researched, scripted, and hosted by Anne Foster.

01:29:37.540 That's me.

01:29:38.700 Editor is Christina Lumagi.

01:29:40.700 Theme music is by The Severn Duo.

01:29:43.040 Transcripts of this podcast are available at vulgarhistory.com by Aveline Malek.

01:29:47.100 You can get early ad-free episodes of Vulgar History by becoming a paid member of our Patreon

01:29:52.080 for as low as $1 a month at patreon.com slash Anne Foster Writer.

01:29:56.520 Vulgar History Merchandise is available at vulgarhistory.com slash store for Americans and for everyone else at vulgarhistory.redbubble.com.

01:30:05.720 Follow us on social media at vulgarhistorypod and get in touch with me via email at vulgarhistorypod at gmail.com.

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Vulgar History - October 24, 2025

Mary Shelley Month： Why Frankenstein Still Matters

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