Writers’ Residences: Literature Lives Here
| June 9, 2017
12. Mary Shelley – Cologny, Switzerland
Mary was an English novelist and travel writer. She was the second child of Mary Wollstonecraft, a feminist philosopher, who died only 11 days after she was born. Her father made sure she and her sisters received a proper education, in accordance with his feminist position.
In 1816, Mary went to Lake Geneva with Percy (her future husband) and her sister Claire, to spend the summer with Lord Byron. Upon hearing some amusing German ghost stories, the group decided that each should write a ghost story of their own. The idea for Frankenstein came when she mixed concepts of galvanism (muscle contraction via electric current) and the principle of life. It’s considered by some to be the first true science fiction story.
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