MONSTER MASH UP
To celebrate the bicentenary of Frankenstein, Alison Chisholm launches our competition for monster poems
Alison Chisholm
It all started when rain stopped play. Mary Godwin and her lover (and later husband) Percy Bysshe Shelley were visiting the poet Lord Byron at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva in Switzerland. The weather was appalling, so the company decided to amuse themselves by reading some German ghost stories in translation. This led to a challenge to see who could write the best ghost story… and eventually Mary came up with the tale that would be guaranteed to freeze the marrow of generations of readers.
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was first published in 1818 in three volumes, and shows how the eponymous doctor created and animated the creature, who is not actually named in the book. 200 years, several versions and at least four plays later, interest in the story shows no sign of flagging. More than fifty films have been made, from those true to Mary Shelley’s novel to such flights of fancy as Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. And even Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet Frankenstein.