“There is love in me the likes of which you’ve never seen. There is rage in me the likes of which should never escape. If I am not satisfied in the one, I will indulge the other.”

This line was written by Mary Shelley, a science fiction writer who is said to have created the genre. Shelley was born on August 30, 1797 in London, England to an activist mother and a philosopher father. Her parents were wild with radicalization, writing about women’s rights, anarchism, and personal freedom, and even though Shelley’s mother passed away a few days after giving birth to her, she and her father both inspired her in her writings and the way she viewed the world.

In 1816, the year Mary Shelley was married, she participated in a ghost-writing contest. This contest inspired her most famous work, and also her debut novel, Frankenstein, which was published two years later in 1818. Frankenstein is the famous story of natural sciences student Victor Frankenstein who builds a man with pieces of corpses and brings him to life. This story has inspired countless retellings since its creation, such as 1931’s Frankenstein and Mel Brook’s Young Frankenstein in 1974.

Shelley went on to write several more novels until her death in 1851. The library has many works by, and about, Mary Shelley. Find links to them below:

Frankenstein (Ebook)
Mathilda
Collected tales and stories