Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was a woman before her time. A feminist. She was strong-willed, intelligent, talented. She was also a woman plagued by tragedy, including the death of three children and her beloved husband, Percy Shelley.

Mary was inspiringly courageous in many ways.

She was outspoken. She wrote fiction no woman before her dared write. Ambitious and experimental, she was the perfect choice to not only lead the League of Supernatural Hunters but to invent it.

My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed – my dearest pleasure when free. ~ Mary Shelley

Imagining her as a monster hunter was one of the easiest parts of inventing the League of Supernatural Hunters. In part, due to the known experiences of her life. But, also to her own behavior. Mary Shelley loved Percy intensely.

Upon her death, they found in her desk, wrapped in paper, Percy’s heart. It was believed that the heart had calcified somewhat when Percy had TB, so it did not burn when he was cremated on a pyre.

Mary’s famous novel, Frankenstein, was inspired by a nightmare.

I saw with shut eyes, but acute mental vision — I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life… ~ Mary Shelley, From the preface of the 3rd edition of the Frankenstein novel.

Mary Shelley, From the preface of the 3rd edition of the Frankenstein novel.

My own Adam Frankenstein is based more on Mary Shelley’s novel than Universal Studios movie adaptation. I strongly recommend that you read the novel. Though it is now over 200 years old, it is still as intriguing today.

The versions below are not pirated but are part of a legal public domain offering.