The Mother of the Monster

I have finally formatted--and uploaded to Amazon/Kindle--my book The Mother of the Monster: The Life and Times of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.  It should be available on Amazon's site in an hour or so.  For the astronomical price of $4.99 (that's less than $5, in case your arithmetic is a little rusty).

I began working on the book shortly before I retired from the Aurora Schools (January 1997), then worked on it every day for four years (and I mean every day) and then spent five or six more years getting it into its current shape.  I read all of Mary Shelley's works--as well as the complete works of her father (William Godwin), mother (Mary Wollstonecraft), husband (Percy Bysshe Shelley), and any number of the contemporaries, friends, and associates (Lord Byron, Coleridge, Trelawny, Charles and Mary Lamb, et al.).

Most fun of all--a six-week trip to Europe in 1999.  I visited England, Wales, France, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany, seeing the Shelley sites and some of the sites in the novel Frankenstein.  (I even had a gooey sundae at the restaurant at Castle Frankenstein near Darmstadt, Germany--a castle that does not appear in the novel & probably has nothing to do with the story.  But still ...)

I also saw many (all?) of the Frankenstein movies, including Tim Burton's short film Frankenweenie (about a dog) and that great world masterpiece Frankenhooker.  You can imagine ...

I tried--off and on--to get some traditional publishers interested but, obviously, did not have much luck.  So here it is, such as it is.  A labor of love and years ...