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Frankenstein As London Serial Killer

“Frankenstein Chronicles” Stalks America – Update – Now available on Netflix

It was announced at the MIP television conference in Cannes that the UK based ITV limited series “Frankenstein Chronicles” had been picked up by the A&E network for broadcast in the U.S., but with changes to that network, never quite made it. It has now been picked up by Netflix.

The original six episode show created by Benjamin Ross and Barry Langford, reimagines the Frankenstein story as a London set murder-mystery, with Police Inspector John Marlott, played by Sean Bean (now perhaps most known for his too-soon execution on “Game of Thrones”), following the trail of a gang of opium smugglers who discovers a grotesque sewn-together body floating in the Thames River. The discovery leads him into an investigation of the dark underground of early 19th Century Georgian London, where presumably Dr. Frankenstein is experimenting, acquiring body parts from bodysnatchers and missing prostitutes. The miniseries follows the detective on a hunt for the mutilator discovering a horror greater than he can imagine.

The series was filmed in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where Game of Thrones production is based, with the harbor city environs doubling for period London. This is the third television iteration of the Frankenstein legend to show in the US. The monster and his creator have been a part of the “Penny Dreadful” series on Showtime for a couple of seasons, and Fox TV is soon to launch its modern detective show once titled “Frankenstein Code” with a reanimated dead cop, but have retitled the show “Lookinglass”, dropping the legendary horror name in an increasingly crowded field, but making spelling a bit more challenging.

The suggestion for the idea of the Baron Frankenstein as London serial killer likely comes from a fairly brief section in the Mary Shelley novel where the monster of his creation has demanded that the student-scientist Frankenstein create a mate for him, and while on his travels, stopping in London, Frankenstein mentions that he attempted to gather “the materials” necessary for this task. In the novel, this effort is not detailed, but obviously in this case “materials” to create a female version of his creature would require body parts, and female parts in particular, with prostitutes the most handy of fresh subjects, combining a bit of Jack the Ripper with the Frankenstein mythos.

The body Inspector Marlott finds in the river is a small one, like a child, so the suggestion might be that Frankenstein is trying to create a family for the monster which rules him, or perhaps a replacement for his own son, murdered by the monster. We have likely a whole series of clues to follow before the revelation. Police “Inspectors” didn’t quite yet investigate crimes in Georgian London, with an organized police force not appearing until Victoria ascended the throne, but perhaps that will be part of the Frankenstein Chronicles story. It is unclear at this point whether this will be a one-off series, or more misadventures are intended, but with Sean Bean’s habit of getting killed-off too soon, maybe it’s just the six-parts.

The crime drama also stars Anna Maxwell Martin, Charlie Creed-Miles, Ed Stoppard, Elliot Cowan, Hugh O’Conor, and Kate Dickie. Seasons One and Two premiered on Netflix February 20, 2018

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Bournemouth Plans Shelley Anniversary Frankenstein Festival

St Peter’s Church in Bournemouth is the final resting place of the author of Frankenstein and the other significant Shelley family members, and the city has discovered that they have taking their hometown literary heroes for granted to far too long. With the 200th Anniversary of the 1818 first anonymous publishing of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novel of “Frankenstein” approaching, a proposal for a Shelley Frankenstein Festival is in planning stages.

Bournemouth was the nearest town to the estate of the family of Percy Bysshe Shelley, which the romantic poet was to inherit, until he tragically drowned in Italy. Mary Shelley and Percy Shelley would stroll from her parent’s publishing house on Skinner Street in London to the gravesite of her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, in the cemetery of the old church of St Pancras (see Shelley Touring London). There is still a marker there, but when the railroads came to London in the Victorian era, the actual remains of Mary Wollstonecraft were moved to Bournemouth, along with the remains of Mary Shelley’s father. Percy Shelley’s body was burned on a beach in the Bay of Spezia, but his heart was carried back home to England and also is at Bournemouth.

With the Frankenstein anniversaries approaching the city council, led by the church Rector, the Reverend Ian Terry, have come to the realization they’ve been sitting on a great national treasure, but have done very little to promote their place in the history of English literature. The first plan of the Frankenstein Festival is to celebrate the anniversary of the marriage of Mary and Percy in 2016. The couple scandalously traveled together while the poet was still married, until his first wife drowned herself in the Hyde Park Serpentine. Mary Godwin would become Mary Shelley in a ceremony in London in December 1816, just a few days after Christmas, six months after their return from the Geneva summer with Byron when the Frankenstein story legendarily born.

Starting in November of 2016, the church will invite back any couples who were married there to renew their vows in a celebration of marriage and the anniversary of the Shelleys’ wedding, though how the Shelleys themselves, who notoriously viewed marriage as a necessity to fit the rules of society rather than a noble institution of intrinsic value, would view such an honor, one can only speculate. Percy Shelley was of an avowed atheist and Mary’s perhaps more philosophical connection to the church might play with a certain irony. In 2017, the Arts University of Bournemouth is mounting a stage play version of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Prometheus Unbound” with a Frankenstein Film Festival to follow. The council is hoping for something bigger for 2018 to attract international visitors to the city, to celebrate the publishing 200th Birthday and are holding meetings for ideas.

Any interested local residents or organization are invited to St Peter’s Church on Thursday, September 10, at 7.30pm, to hear about the plans and offer suggestions. Ideas can also be sent to ianterry@live.co.uk

Secret Memoirs of Mary Shelley  – E-Book

Secret Memoirs of Mary Shelley – Paperback

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Frankenstein In Switzerland

Follow the travels of Mary Shelley, Percy Shelly and Lord Byron in Switzerland

Villa Diodati Plate Overlooking Lake Geneva

Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva

Most people casually familiar with Frankenstein who have not read the novel, usually seem to get the idea that the creator of the monster was German and the events happened there. This mostly comes from the movie and the name, with lots of Bavarian costumed villagers carrying pitchforks on a Hollywood backlot. Though for anyone truly familiar with Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novel of “Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus” know that Victor Frankenstein was from Geneva, Switzerland, and many events of the story take place in and around the Lake Geneva region of southern Switzerland. And curiously, though the name is German in origin, Geneva is in French speaking Switzerland, so the added confusion.

Many fans of the story are familiar a bit with the story of the beginnings of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novel of Frankenstein, related in a later edition introduction to the book, telling of the summer of 1816, when Mary Godwin, Percy Byssche Shelley, and Lord Byron, along with travelling companions John Polidori and Claire Clairmont gathered on the shores of Lake Geneva at a villa rented by Byron, and the contest to tell a scare story, but there is far more to discover in Switzerland than a single rental villa from long ago.

Those fascinated with the origins of the most famous monster story and the inspirations of the Romantics, the authors of the late 18th and early 19th Century who came to Switzerland to discover the still pristine wonders, might follow the clues left buried in the pages. Many of the passages in the Frankenstein novel are taken almost directly from the journals of the Shelleys’ travels.

Rousseau Plaque Geneva

Jean-Jacques Rousseau Birth House Geneva

A tour to follow the romantics might start in Geneva. The founders of the Romanticism movement in English literature were inspired by Genevan author Jean-Jacques Rousseau whose “Julie, or The New Heloise” based on a then “modern” retelling of the French legend of Abelard and Heloise, which Rousseau sets in scenes around Lake Geneva, attracted the likes of Byron and the Shelleys.

The Villa Diodati in the upscale Cologny suburb of Geneva where Byron stayed and the ghost story contest legend originated is not open to tourists, but is a private residence. But nearby, is the Bodmer Library, with a collection of rare books and manuscripts, which would have fascinated the Shelleys. While Mary and Claire stayed behind (Mary had brought her infant son and Claire was pregnant) Byron and Percy Shelley sailed a boat around the lake, visiting the castle of the Chateau Chillon and sites around Montreux (Clarens) and Vevey. Just as they did, you can visit the most famous castle in Switzerland and taste the wines of the 500 year old vineyards of the Lavaux Region.

Chateau Chillon Montreux

Chateau Chillon Lake Geneva

Byron and Shelley stopped at Ouchy in Lausanne where now the Lake Geneva Cruise boats depart for cruises of beautiful Lake Leman. Byron began his story of the Prisoner of Chillon while they stayed in the Hotel d’Angleterre in Ouchy, now commemorated with a plaque and a partner hotel of the neighboring Beau Rivage Palace Hotel. The Shelleys stayed at the Hotel d’Angleterre in Geneva (Secheron) before meeting up with Byron. The original of that one is gone, but an historic luxury hotel of the same name, for its English tourist visitors on the Grand Tour, remains about a block from where the original stood. Lord Byron also paid several visits to the literary salons of Madame de Stael, a nemesis of Napoleon and a renowned author herself, at her Chateau Coppet, which is open to the public.

Mary Shelley took many of the inspirations for the settings of her novel from the environs of Geneva. The murder of Victor Frankenstein’s son, William, by the monster he created she set on the Plaine de Plainpalais, where an art statue of the creature now stands, affectionately named “Frankie”. She chose this location because of its connection to Rousseau, when even then a monument to him was located there for its part in the uprising of the common man. The Frankenstein family house she set within the town of Belrive (Collogne-Bellerive), on the south shore of the lake, a short distance from where the Shelleys’ rented a house to be near Lord Byron’s rental at Villa Diodati in Cologny.

   “It was completely dark when I arrived in the environs of Geneva; the gates of the town were already shut; and I was obliged to pass the night at Secheron, a village at the distance of half a league from the city. The sky was serene; and, as I was unable to rest, I resolved to visit the spot where my poor William had been murdered. As I could not pass through the town, I was obliged to cross the lake in a boat to arrive at Plainpalais. During this short voyage I saw the lightning playing on the summit of Mont Blanc in the most beautiful figures… the thunder burst with a terrific crash over my head. It was echoed from Saleve, the Juras, and the Alps of Savoy…” Frankenstein

She wrote of the creature in the snowy mountains of the Mont Blanc range and Chamonix, where the creature hid with a local village farm family and Victor Frankenstein would search for his creation.

       “I passed the bridge of Pelissier, where the ravine, which the river forms, opened before me, and I began to ascend the mountain that overhangs it. Soon after, I entered the valley of Chamounix.” Frankenstein   

Geneva is only a possible beginning of a tour. Less known, is the journey Mary Godwin and Percy Shelley made in 1814 when they eloped from London, when Mary was only 16, and ran away to Paris with Mary’s step-sister Claire Clairmont, then traveled across France to Switzerland, then up the Rhine River. This journey of the romantic tour of Mary Shelley and Percy Shelley is told in “The Frankenstein Diaries: The Secret Memoirs of Mary Shelley“.

The threesome entered Switzerland from France and crossed the Jura mountains to Neuchatel (Neufchatel), where they stayed at a hotel in approximately the location of today’s Beau Rivage Neuchatel, with the same lake views the romantic travelers would have seen. Railways did not exist in 1814 and 1816, so rather than tour Switzerland by foot or horse coach, today it’s easy to visit these Switzerland sites by rail with a Swiss Pass Rail Pass. From Geneva, Neuchatel is a quick trip. Cruise the three lakes, and visit the watch-making district of La Chaux-de-Fonds in the Jura Mountains.

Lake Uri

Lake Uri at Brunnen

From Neuchatel, their path took them to Lucerne, passing through Solothurn, for a look at the cathedral. It was new at the time and they found the neo-classic formal architecture, with its crisp white marble, a bit unappealing. From Lucerne they took a boat to Brunnen where Lake Lucerne meets Lake Uri. They were fascinated by the story of William Tell and his part in the founding of Switzerland, and today you can take the Wilhelm Tell Express cruise and train route. One might pause to wonder, then, why Victor Frankenstein’s son was named William.

      “I have seen the most beautiful scenes of my own country; I have visited the lakes of Lucerne and Uri, where the snowy mountains descend almost perpendicularly to the water, casting black and impenetrable shades, which would cause a gloomy and mournful appearance were it not for the most verdant islands… I have seen this lake agitated by a tempest, when the wind tore up whirlwinds of water and gave you an idea of what the water-spout must be on the great ocean; and the waves dash with fury the base of the mountain, where the priest and his mistress were overwhelmed by an avalanche and where their dying voices are still said to be heard amid the pauses of the nightly wind; I have seen the mountains of La Valais, and the Pays de Vaud; but this country, Victor, pleases me more than all those wonders…” Frankenstein

The house where they stayed on Lake Lucerne is long gone, but Brunnen, or just down the shore, Vitznau or Weggis, offer a wonderful place to stop and explore the Lake Lucerne Riviera with the walking trails of the mountains Mary Shelley described, or the historic mountain train to Mt Rigi which would come later. When their money ran out, they took a boat back to Lucerne, admiring the chapel bridge and staying at a hotel, possibly the Wilden Mann which still exists. Then, by boat they followed the Reuss River to the Rhine, crossing the falls and on to Basel. Explore the Rhine Falls at Schaffhausen, and explore the very historic city of Basel, before getting on a plane or train back to France or continue to Germany where they traveled the Rhine River past the Castle of Frankenstein.

        “We had agreed to descend the Rhine in a boat from Strasbourg to Rotterdam, whence we might take shipping for London. During this voyage we passed many willowy islands and saw several beautiful towns. We stayed a day at Mannheim, and on the fifth from our departure from Strasbourg, arrived at Mainz. The course of the Rhine below Mainz becomes much more picturesque. The river descends rapidly and winds between hills, not high, but steep, and of beautiful forms. We saw many ruined castles standing on the edges of precipices, surrounded by black woods, high and inaccessible. This part of the Rhine, indeed, presents a singularly variegated landscape. In one spot you view rugged hills, ruined castles overlooking tremendous precipices, with the dark Rhine rushing beneath; and on the sudden turn of a promontory, flourishing vineyards with green sloping banks and a meandering river and populous towns occupy the scene…” Frankenstein

Secret Memoirs of Mary Shelley  – E-Book

Secret Memoirs of Mary Shelley – Paperback

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The Missing Novels of Mary Shelley and Claire Clairmont

Hate and The Idiot – Competition of Two Sisters

Book Covers Hate and The Idiot Lost Novels of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and Jane Clara ClairmontMary Shelley is certainly famous for her seminal novel of Frankenstein, and she wrote other books to follow, but her first attempt at a novel begun during her teenage elopement and journey across Europe during the summer of 1814 with Percy Shelley and her step-sister Claire née Jane Clairmont is long missing, with only a brief reference to it in letters and her journal. And it was from that journey as well, Claire also attempted a novel, long missing to literature’s judgment.

Mary Shelley, still then Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, began a book while traveling on route back to England after the adventures of France and Switzerland only known by its title “Hate”. Mary herself never publicly elaborated on its theme or content, except that it apparently brought some amusement to Shelley. She abandoned it before completion and one could imagine it might contain themes she would revisit in her later published book, and may have been inspired by the emotional reaction to experiences of her journey of six weeks together with her step-sister and her lover across the devastated lands of France ravaged by the recent Napoleonic War. The title is at the least, tantalizing.

Claire had also begun a novel at the age of 16, with a title no less curious and intriguing for its sharp brevity, “The Idiot”. It is also lost to time and mystery, and its fate may be evidenced in her later expression of some jealousy over her sister’s and her family’s literary success, writing after the death of her brother William in 1832, “In our family, if you cannot write an epic poem or novel that by its originality knocks all other novels on the head, you are a despicable creature, not worth acknowledging.” And wondering, “What would they have done or said had their children been fond of dress, fond of cards, drunken, profligate, as most people’s children are?” – a decided contrast between her Clairmont family character and the more serious Godwins.

In her diary of September of 1814 begun after her travels, Claire would write of wanting to create a character whose independence of mind would cause others to judge them as an “Ideot”. There is evidence that Claire sent this work, perhaps more work-in-progress than completed novel, to Lord George Byron, when she had insinuated an introduction to him in 1816. She noted in letters, using her then preferred name of Clara Clairmont, that it was “half a novel or a tale”, with the pretext of looking for career advice. She was undecided upon either a writing career or an entrance onto the stage through Byron’s connection to the Drury Lane Theater, though she was possibly most interested in a romance with the poet.

Bryon apparently did not respond to it at the time. In a rather desperate sounding and forward letter of a young acolyte who had not received a response, she wrote him, “If you said you were too busy to look at it, I should have understood …it may arise from your affairs and then I am tiresome; or it may be occasioned by negligence, which to me is at least as bad.” Apparently in her eagerness, she made the mistake of submitting a first incomplete draft to someone who didn’t know her. And one may imagine what someone of Byron’s place with many eager fans may have thought of the submission. “Will you make allowance for my years? I do not expect you to approve; all I wish to know is whether I have talents, which, if aided by severe study may render me fit to become an author. I had half resolved to correct and revise it; but afterword, thought if you saw it just as it was, written at intervals, and in scraps, you would be a better judge.”

As for what the story was, she did outline her theme. “My intention was to draw a character committing every violence against received opinion…who knew no other guide on the impulses arising from herself, than herself…whose sweetness and naiveté of character should draw upon her the pity rather than the contempt of her readers.” The story also dealt with themes of Atheism and Christianity and bore some evidence of the journey she had undertaken with her step-sister and Shelley as told in The  Secret Memoirs of Mary Shelley, the Frankenstein Diaries.

“It is at present in a very rude state; perhaps the whole of the first part should be rewritten,” she went on. “The tale is too abruptly begun; I am aware that the first sentence rather tempts one to throw the book down than to continue.” Not the most positive way to present a work for judgment. It is difficult to judge the book with no example remaining, but not hard to suggest that her writing as a teenager may not have been to the standard of her relatives, though her later letters evidenced her skill with words and her intelligence. And where Mary Shelley had resolved not to make herself the protagonist of her stories, Claire’s book seemed as if it was decidedly focused on herself, if in thin disguise. Mary would begin Frankenstein about the same time that Claire was presenting her draft to Byron, and would go though many revisions with the help of Shelley.

While Bryon showed no interest in the book by Miss Clairmont, she pursued him in person, resulting in a daughter between them.  Byron rejected Claire when she came to him pregnant with his child and had apparently  coldly rejected her as he did her writing. She would write to him in 1816 following the summer in Geneva in a letter full desperation at his indifference and longing for his attention, “Now, if I tell you my thoughts, dearest, you mustn’t bring them against me to make me look foolish as you did that hateful novel thing I wrote.”

Percy Shelley may have given Claire some assistance with her story and attempted to help her get it published in 1817, offering it to two publishers, Thomas Hookham, where at the same time he and Mary were publishing their travel journal “History of a Six Weeks Tour”, and to John Murray. Claire’s book was rejected, and never heard from again. She did have the last laugh though on her tragic family circle of romantics, by living to the age of 80.

Secret Memoirs of Mary Shelley  – E-Book

Secret Memoirs of Mary Shelley – Paperback

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FRANKENSTEIN – FACES OF THE MONSTER

The 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s creation and publishing of her novel “Frankenstein, or, The New Prometheus” is soon upon us, both the origination in that summer of 1816 on Lake Geneva and the first publishing of the novel in 1818. In the book, the creation of a living being from the parts of the dead, brought back to life had a description of a gangly oversized being of horrid visage, which Victor Frankenstein said he intended to be beautiful, but somehow, didn’t come out right.

“How can I describe … the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! … His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same color as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion and straight black lips …” From this brief outline of horror has come a stream of imaginings in film and art to represent the horror of Mary Shelley’s idea.

Today, the image of the Frankenstein Monster is indelibly etched in our consciousness, but that image of a square, flat-topped head with scars and bolts in the neck have mostly come to us from the 1931 movie version make-up of Boris Karloff, created by Hollywood make-up artist, Jack Pierce. But there have been many iterations of what the creature of Victor Frankenstein’s experiments with life and death would look like. Here are a collection of some of the many faces of the monster…

Boris Karloff Frankenstein 1931

Frankenstein Charles Ogle 1910 Edison Silent Film

Robert DeNiro in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein 1994

The Famous Adventures of Mr Magoo 1965

Christopher Lee  Hammer Films 1957

The Munsters Fred Gwynne 1965

Young Frankenstein Peter Boyle 1974

1831 Book Edition Illustration

I Frankenstein Aaron Eckhart 2014

Benedict Cumberbatch Filmed Stage Production 2011

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Lord Byron in the Hand of Mary Shelley at Keats-Shelley House Rome

Lord Byron and Mary Shelley Exhibiit at Keats-Shelley HouseFrom June 29 until November 6, 2015, the Keats-Shelley House in Rome will be offering a special exhibition “Lord Byron in the Hand of Mary Shelley”. The exhibition presents a sequence of manuscripts on loan from the National Library of Scotland, alongside Byron treasures from the Keats-Shelley House’s own collection – which explores the fascinating relationship between these two important figures of Romantic Literature and the ways in which Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley edited Byron’s work in preparation for its publication.

Mary Shelley met Lord Byron in the fateful summer of 1816 at Lake Geneva, from where the legendary contest of literary lights reading ghost stories launched the 18 year old Mary’s own writing career with imagining of the student of science and his monster. Mary and the “mad, bad, and dangerous to know” Byron, were introduced through Mary’s step-sister’s machinations. Claire Clairmont was pregnant with Byron’s child that summer and Mary had recently given birth to her first son, William, in January of that year. Byron wanted nothing to do with Claire, and would later epically fight over their daughter, Allegra, but the poet and Mary, seemed to develop a friendship. Bryon would never return to England, and his beloved Newstead Abbey, but from these manuscripts it appears Mary acted as a publishing contact following her husband’s tragic death in Italy.

The Keats-Shelley House is the residence in Rome just next to the famous Spanish Steps, where the Romantic poets Keats, Percy Shelley and Lord Gordon Byron lived while Rome, now a museum, library and exhibition center dedicated to the works and lives of the poets. The library houses 8,000 volumes of books, periodicals of these second generation Romantics, with an especially extensive collection of editions of Byron related works, collected by the library’s originator Harry Nelson Gay, as well as many lifetime and nineteenth-century editions of the works of other Romantics and influential writers of the period including William Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, William Godwin and Thomas Lovell Beddoes, with a small collection of travel and history books celebrating the European ‘Grand Tour’.

Entrance to the exhibition is included in the price of the standard museum entrance ticket. Keats-Shelley House

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A STORM IN THE STARS – A TEMPEST BY THE LAKE

Mary Shelley and Percy Shelley Film with Elle Fanning

“A Storm in the Stars” is an independent film in development for 2016.  Elle Fanning has been long announced to play Mary Shelley in the project, with Bel Powley to play step-sister Claire Clairmont. The project has been on development boards for about a year and gained traction with director Haifaa Al-Mansour signing on to direct the period re-telling of the love affair between poet Percy Shelley and Mary Shelley, (then still Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin) which resulted in the writing of Frankenstein. The script is by Regency Romance novelist Emma Jensen scripting her first full-length film, depicting the relationship between Mary and Percy when Claire moves in with them, and the drama surrounding the writing of the novel, said to be “a fresh take on the unconventional life of 18 year-old Mary Shelley and her tempestuous love affair with charismatic poet Percy Shelley, the notorious trip to Lake Geneva with Lord Byron and the rocky road that made her into an icon”. No casting of Byron or others has yet been mentioned.

See A Storm In The Stars Film Shoots in Ireland Update

Al-Mansour, Saudi Arabia’s first female director, who came on the scene with her critically acclaimed debut film about a girl trying to win a bicycle “Wadjda”, outed the project when she announced her attachment on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show. The film seems now firmly underway after getting a boost at the 2015 Cannes Film Market with England’s HanWay Films handling foreign sales and the addition of Douglas Booth to play Percy Bysshe Shelley. Booth played the son in the Paramount version of “Noah”. Production is scheduled to begin in the fall of 2015. There is no US distributor announced yet. UTA Independent Film Group put the project together for Gidden Media and Parallel Film, and will be representing North American rights to the film. Joanne Burstein and Rebecca Miller serve as Executive Producers. Douglas Booth, Al-Mansour, and Bel Powley are all represented by UTA, while Elle Fanning is repped by WME. UK Distributor Artificial Eye picked up the as yet to be made film at Cannes. In a competition between versions of monstrous inspiration, this project seems to be gaining traction over a competing film project “Mary Shelley’s Monster” with “Game of Thrones’ ” Sophie Turner announced .

Reports suggest this film story takes place in the period starting a year before the summer of 1816 until the publishing of the novel two years later in 1818, with the events surrounding the “Gothic” summer at Villa Diodati in Geneva, the well-known scary story competition, and the relationships before and following, when the Shelleys (they weren’t yet married until the end of 1816), were hounded by scandal and Claire joined them as a near permanent third-wheel. This is the period following the elopement of 1814 and some of the same relationships related in “Frankenstein Diaries: The Romantics – The Secret Memoirs of Mary Shelly” which depicts these characters as this extraordinary relationship was in its formation, and would appear in later volumes.

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VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN – THE MOVIE

Igor Finally Gets his Story Told!

Daniel Radcliffe James McAvoy Victor Frankenstein Movie

Daniel Radcliffe as Igor and James McAvoy as Victor Frankenstein on set

A big budget retelling of the Frankenstein story has finished shooting and will be showing in theaters  November 25th (in the US) from 20th Century Fox. The release date was recently pushed back from Halloween to Thanksgiving, switched with a Ridley Scott film, “Martian”. The project originated in 2011 and began filming at the end of 2013. The film stars James McAvoy as the titular Dr. Victor Frankenstein and Daniel Radcliffe as his assistant Igor, with Jessica Browne Findley from Downton Abbey as Lorelei. This version of the story from Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus” takes a revisionist twist, telling the tale of obsession and hubris from the point of view of Dr. Frankenstein’s friend and assistant, there to observe his downfall. The movie was originally titled just “Frankenstein”, but in a crowded field of like projects in advance of the 200th Anniversary of the publishing in the novel in 1818, they went with a more specific Victor Frankenstein.

The story, (20th Century-Fox official synopsis) tells “when Dr. Victor Frankenstein and his trusted assistant Igor go too far in their noble attempts to aid humanity, Victor’s obsession turns to madness. He then unleashes his final creation — a monstrous figure that holds unimaginable terror for anyone its path”. Some photo images from the production have been released of the actors on the set, but the monster creation has yet to make an appearance. See Trailer

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein novel did not have an assistant character named Igor, and Victor Frankenstein was not really a doctor, but a student at Ingolstadt University. The idea of an Igor assistant first appeared in Universal’s “Son of Frankenstein” movie, with Bela Lugosi playing a character name Ygor, with a hunched back. Universal needed something for their other horror star to do in the Frankenstein series, and Bela went on to play the monster as well, later. Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein” riffed off the assistant, now named “Igor” as a hunchback with a shifting hump, played hilariously by Marty Feldman, with his shifting eye to go with it.

I doubt there was any idea to give Daniel Radcliffe a humped back, and all images suggest a more urbane young gentleman, rather than an accented flunky, with the intent to give the age old, oft-told horror story the more recent “Sherlock Holmes” treatment, as a buddy movie of young idealistic scientist gone mad. Filming locations were all in the UK, and the characters suggest the heroes spend a good deal of time in the social club and theatrical world, between carousing and body parts hunting, so the German and Swiss settings of the novel appear changed to early 19th Century England. The filming locations included the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, Manchester Town Hall and Albert Square in Manchester, Dunnottar Castle in Aberdeen and Hatfield House in Hertfordshire

The script for Victor Frankenstein was written by Max Landis who came to the fore with the high budget “found footage” effect film “Chronicle” and is directed by Scottish director Paul McGuigan, known for “Lucky Number Sleven” and “Wicker Park” but has mostly been directing television, notably the “Sherlock” series and “Devious Maids”. The Victor Frankenstein film also features actors Andrew Scott and Mark Gatiss from the “Sherlock” tv series, with Callum Turner, Freddie Fox and Louise Brealey in a large cast.

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MARY SHELLEY IN DUNDEE, SCOTLAND – BEING HUMAN 2015

Dundee Firth of Tay 1814

In November of 2015, the city of Dundee, Scotland will explore the time the author of Frankenstein spent there in her youth. “Mary Shelley’s Dundee: Re-Animating a City” will be hosted by the University of Dundee as part of the city’s participation in the Being Human Festival of 2015. The festival which runs from November 12 to 22 is a collection of events celebrating the humanities held across the UK at 41 Universities and Institutions.

The program in Dundee will include the production of original theatrical adaptations related to Frankenstein and offer film screenings to examine Many Wollstonecraft Shelley’s teenage years in Dundee in the years before her work as a published author. The exhibition also proposes to relate the impact of her famous first novel “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus” on modern writers, artists and filmmakers. The “Mary Shelley’s Dundee” exhibition is intended to further the cause of humanities research and its relevance to Scotland today. The Dundee exploration is the brainchild of Dr. Daniel Cook, a Lecturer in English at Dundee University and blogger proponent of Romanticism and Romantic Literature in education, who refers to Mary Shelley as “the mother of modern science fiction”.

The Frankenstein author was still Mary Godwin during her visits to Scotland when her father William Godwin had become acquainted with a Dundee fellow radical thinker, William Baxter. The teenage Mary, who had been suffering from an unexplained partial paralysis, was sent to stay with the Baxters in 1812 when she was 14 years old for her health, and to escape the rising contentious conflicts with her step-mother Mary Jane Clairmont-Godwin. Mary would spend time with the four Baxter daughters, with youthful experiments in mysticism and her explorations of the Scottish hills, while trips with the Baxters would expose her to the North Sea tales of sailors which would later appear in the wraparound telling of the sea captain who picks up Victor Frankenstein, chasing his monster, from the icy waters in the Frankenstein novel.

The story of “Frankenstein Diaries: The Romantics” begins shortly following Mary Godwin’s second ten month trip to Scotland and Dundee, and her return to London when she would meet Percy Bysshe Shelley as a 16 year old and begin their tumultuous love affair and elopement to Paris. Mary recounts her time in Scotland to her half-sister Fanny Imlay-Godwin, and the inspiration to try her first formative steps as a writer, to follow the footsteps of the mother she idolizes but never knew, Mary Wollstonecraft.

Secret Memoirs of Mary Shelley  – E-Book

Secret Memoirs of Mary Shelley – Paperback

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Mary Shelley’s Frankensteiniana in 2015-2016

Frankenstein in books, movies and TV for 2015 and 2016 (Reprinted from Travelmode)

It is arguably the most famous single name in literature and in the cultural psyche of fantasy, representing the dark side of humanity, chills and horrors of many a kind. Frankenstein. And it is about get more familiar with a whole rash of new media projects in the works based, whether directly or very loosely on the name, characters and book written by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley emerging in 2015 and 2016, in advance of the 200th Anniversary(s). Upcoming projects encompass the themes and plot of the Frankenstein story as well as the lives of the creator and her relationship circle.

Here are some of the new iterations to come.

Daniael Radcliffe on Set of Victor Frankenstein“Victor Frankenstein” a film in production due in 0ct. of 2015  This is a Hollywood film with Daniel Radcliffe and James McAvoy in a reimagining of the original Mary Shelley novel story, told from the point of view of Dr. Frankenstein’s assistant Igor, played by Radcliffe, who switches from wizard with a scar to sideman to the mad scientist. Except there was no Igor in the book – he came from the movie versions, and with more notoriety from Mel Brook’s comedy spoof of “Young Frankenstein” as a bug-eyed hunchback. Igor wasn’t really in the cannon at all until Universal wanted something for Bela Lugosi to do and put him in “Son of Frankenstein” and needed a creepy character with an accent, spelled with a “Y”. This Igor dresses much better.

“Frankenstein” an independent movie due out in 2015  This is a modern retelling of the story set in Los Angeles by writer/director Bernard Rose, the director of “Candyman” about a present day married couple of scientists who create a monster with dire consequences, told from the point of view of the “monster”.

“Frankenstein Diaries: The Romantics – The Secret Memoirs of Mary Shelley” book due out in summer 2015  A novel of Mary Shelley’s life and love story with Percy Bysshe Shelley and their elopement to Paris in 1814 with Claire Clairmont, with additional secrets revealed in an historically reverent illumination of their intimate motivations and the inspiration for the novel.

“Romantic Outlaws: The Extrordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley” a “dual biography” of the author of Frankenstein and her mother by Charlotte Gordon out on April of 2015.

“Frankenstein Code” TV series from Fox due out in 2015  This is a rip of the name for a modern cop drama series according to Fox “taking inspiration from the basic Mary Shelley mythology of a man brought back to life by scientists playing God” centers on a morally corrupt retired cop who is given a second chance at life when he is brought back from the dead.

“Frankenstein Chronicles” a UK television limited series from ITV  When mutilated stitched bodies float up the Thames River, detectives in Regency period London know that something dark is afoot. The series is shooting in Belfast with Sean Bean, who lost his head in “Game of Thrones”, here playing a detective discovering other severed body parts and tracking down Dr. Frankenstein as a serial killer. “Ripper Street” 60 years sooner.

“A Storm in the Stars” an independent film in development for 2016  Announced with Elle Fanning to play Mary Shelley to be directed by Haifaa Al-Mansour in a period drama telling of the Mary Shelley story according to IMDB, “The love affair between poet Percy Shelley and 18 years old Mary Wollstonecraft, which resulted in Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein”. Recently got a boost at the 2015 Cannes Film Market with Hanway Films signing on for sales, with production hoped for in fall of 2015.

“Mary Shelley’s Monster” a film in pre-production for 2016   This is said by producers to be a modern(ish) telling of the Mary Shelley story, focused on the creation of the book and later, according to IMDB  “Mary Shelley strikes a Faustian bargain with her alter ego as she works on her seminal novel”. Sophie Turner, “Sansa Stark” from “Game of Thrones” has been announced to play Mary.

Already here “Frankenstein M.D.” a web series from PBS  A modern young focused web series which reimagines the title character as Victoria Frankenstein, an obsessive prodigy determined to prove herself in the male-dominated fields of science and medicine.

There are probably a few others out there as well. Universal badly wants to revitalize its library  for a new audience. Maybe they can bring James Whale back from the dead and stitch him together with J.J. Abrams. Or maybe Abraham Lincoln will go monster hunting now, if somebody finds his body and sews him up.

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