The Shelleys – Gothic Romance Couple Forever
The Shelleys Married
It’s official, Brangelina are breaking up, but the Shelleys are still the eternal romantic couple, and in essence the real love story of Frankenstein. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and Percy Bysshe Shelley married on December 30, 1816 at St Mildred’s Church in London. It was an eventful and turbulent two and half year romance up until then. They had eloped to the continent in the summer of 1814, endured the condemnation of society and estrangement of their families, one miscarriage and the infant death of another child, the suicide of Mary’s sister Fanny and spent that fateful summer of 1816 in Geneva from which Mary’s famous monstrous literary invention would launch them to forever Gothic fandom fame together. They would have to live separately, with Mary moving from one dingy neighborhood to another to avoid the unseemly criticism of their common associates, while Shelley dodged bill collectors, denied the money due from his grandfather’s estate by his father as penalty for his love of Mary, until the suicide of Shelley’s first wife would free him from the restriction of “living in sin”.
Curiously for a couple to be defined by their hurried and long delayed marriage, neither of them really believed in the institution of marriage, but could not avoid the social consequences of the institution. Mary’s philosopher father, William Godwin, had been famous for his intellectual rejection of the idea of marriage, as did Shelley in his concept of “free love” but Godwin had married Mary’s mother Mary Wollstonecraft to placate the judgment of their society and married again to Mary’s step-mother Mary Jane Clairmont. Indeed, it was Godwin, the most theoretical rejecter of the institution who was the hardest on Mary for her unmarried “illicit” relationship with Shelley, not because he believed in sin, but for its reflection on the reputation of his family, rejecting the affection of his daughter, even while accepting money from Shelley for his living expense, so much as to cause the scandalous perception that he had “sold” his daughter to the noble poet.
The modern version of Brad and Angelina at first avoided the artifice of official marriage, but ultimately fell to its hold on the concept of society. Curiously the divorce bill for the dissolution of Mr. and Mrs. Pitt doesn’t cite infidelity, but rather drug use in the home, as a cause of action. The tabloid scandal which had launched the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie romance to the headlines was contest between Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Anniston. Rumors had been spread and are even repeated to today suggesting that Shelley had an affair with Mary’s half-sister Claire Clairmont. Mary always rejected this idea until her dying day, but Shelley struggled with a dependence on laudanum for much of his life. It seems unlikely they would be broken up by the minor skirmishes of a modern day relationship. The Shelleys had endured so much turbulence and tragedy to be together, so that only Shelley’s tragic early death could break them up, and Mary would never marry again, so purely devoted, making them an eternal couple.
Secret Memoirs of Mary Shelley – E-Book
Secret Memoirs of Mary Shelley – Paperback
It’s been 200 years since the story of Frankenstein was first envisioned in a fever dream of an 18 year old girl’s imagination, and countless movies, plays, novels and Halloween scares have followed, but you’ve never really “arrived” as a true cultural icon until someone names a FroYo treat in your honor. In the novel, the Frankenstein creature made of reanimated worm food escapes to the frozen arctic, but since the ice of the arctic is melting, making a frozen dessert of sweetened cream and amoebas seems just and appropriate.
TCM cable channel Turner Classic Movies recently ran a Boris Karloff day and I had a chance to watch the 1931 Frankenstein and the 1934 Bride of Frankenstein shot four years later, both directed by James Whale. The difference between the two movies was quite fascinating. Boris Karloff had gone in the credits from a “?” to simply the one name KARLOFF by the send movie, having become a household icon in between. The original film deviated so far from the original book to be almost unrecognizable, and oddly switched Victor to Henry Frankenstein and Victor’s friend from the book to Victor in the movie. The Bride of Frankenstein went back to the book to borrow more, and famously dramatized the introduction with Byron and Percy Shelley in Geneva.
The Frankenstein Village set had changed quite a bit as well. In the original it was a Bavarian style village with the Frankenstein family house a high ceiling mansion in the middle of the village with an entrance looking out on the street. In the Bride of Frankenstein, the town had turned into a larger walled castle city with a gate and drawbridge. In the first movie, the science lab was in a mill tower on a hill, in the second, a castle tower as part of the city complex. Both films were shot on the Universal studio back lot.
The 1931 Frankenstein village set was actually built for the World War I epic “All Quiet on the Western Front” shot by Lewis Milestone a year earlier in 1930, for where the soldiers left home to the fervor of marching bands, before the devastations of war. The archways and street scenes can be recognized between the two films, with the archway into town shot from different angles. Some small parts of the Old Europe called the Court of Miracles set on the Universal backlot is still there but much of the set areas were burned in a fire at the studio some years ago. A few remnants called Little Europe still remain on the 
The stored laboratory sets and equipment were famously used again in Mel Brook’s “Young Frankenstein” and some of those props still remain in the Universal props shop. The lake where the little girl scene was filmed is out in Agoura about 40 minutes from Universal out the 101 highway. Malibu Lake is now surrounded by houses and a golf course. The Paramount Movie Ranch with its much used western town set is about five minutes away from the lake, and is now actually a National Park as part of the Santa Monica Mountain Recreation Area, but the western sets, used for countless movies and TV shows also recently burned in a wild fire.