Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Lady and Her Monsters: A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr. Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley's Masterpiece
    Unavailable
    The Lady and Her Monsters: A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr. Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley's Masterpiece
    Unavailable
    The Lady and Her Monsters: A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr. Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley's Masterpiece
    Ebook388 pages6 hours

    The Lady and Her Monsters: A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr. Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley's Masterpiece

    By Roseanne Montillo

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    Listen to the audiobook instead

    About this ebook

    The Lady and Her Monsters by Roseanne Motillo brings to life the fascinating times, startling science, and real-life horrors behind Mary Shelley’s gothic masterpiece, Frankenstein.

    Montillo recounts how—at the intersection of the Romantic Age and the Industrial Revolution—Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein was inspired by actual scientists of the period: curious and daring iconoclasts who were obsessed with the inner workings of the human body and how it might be reanimated after death.

    With true-life tales of grave robbers, ghoulish experiments, and the ultimate in macabre research—human reanimation—The Lady and Her Monsters is a brilliant exploration of the creation of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley’s horror classic.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateFeb 5, 2013
    ISBN9780062235886
    Author

    Roseanne Montillo

    Roseanne Montillo is an accomplished research librarian who earned her MFA from Emerson College and has taught creative writing at Emerson and the Tufts Extension School. In addition to Deliberate Cruelty, she has published four previous works of narrative nonfiction to critical acclaim—Fire on the Track, The Wilderness of Ruin, Atomic Women, and The Lady and Her Monsters. 

    Read more from Roseanne Montillo

    Related to The Lady and Her Monsters

    Related ebooks

    Literary Criticism For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      30 Books in 30 Days: Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life

      Feb 22, 2017

      In the 30 Books in 30 Days series leading up to the March 16 announcement of the 2016 National Book Critics Circle award winners, NBCC board members review the 30 finalists. Today, NBCC board member Kate Tuttle offers an appreciation of biography fin

      2 min read

    • Article

      Performance Surgery

      Aug 4, 2021

      Performance Surgery
      2 min read

    • Article

      Galileo the Science Publicist: Scientists putting their lives on the line can take heart from a great astronomer.

      Jul 14, 2021

      There’s an old belief that truth will always overcome error. Alas, history tells us something different. Without someone to fight for it, to put error on the defensive, truth may languish. It may even be lost, at least for some time. No one understoo

      6 min read

    • Article

      How Your Embryo Knew What To Do: The forgotten story of the woman who discovered how animals get their shape.

      Nov 26, 2015

      This was the moment Hilde Proescholdt had been waiting for. Peering through her bench-top microscope in 1921, she beheld the soft mass of a salamander embryo. Fertilized two days earlier, the developing creature, no larger than a grain of sand, was n

      7 min read

    • Article

      How The Universe Works

      Feb 23, 2023

      Irven M Resnick & Kenneth F Kitchell Jr Reaktion Books 2022 Hb, 224pp, £16.95, ISBN 9781789145137 The mediæval literary world was plagued with self-effacing authors. Rather than proudly write their own name on the title pages of their manuscripts, th

      3 min read

    • Article

      How Science Trumps Denial

      May 6, 2020

      There’s an old belief that truth will always overcome error. Alas, history tells us something different. Without someone to fight for it, to put error on the defensive, truth may languish. It may even be lost, at least for some time. No one understoo

      5 min read

    • Article

      Three Hundred Not Out

      Jul 15, 2020

      Three Hundred Not Out
      5 min read

    • Article

      Monsters, Marvels, and the Birth of Science: How the Unlikely and Unexplainable, Strange and Terrifying, Spawned the Age of Science.: How the unlikely and unexplainable, strange and terrifying, spawned the age of science.

      Aug 1, 2013

      Finding regularity in nature is the bread and butter of science. We know that reptiles lay eggs, while mammals bear live young; the Earth revolves around the sun every 365.25 days; electrons glom onto protons like bears onto honey. But what if some o

      11 min read

    • Article

      What Slime Knows

      Aug 27, 2021

      What Slime Knows
      12 min read

    • Article

      Tales Of A Fractured Mind

      Oct 28, 2021

      Tales Of A Fractured Mind
      8 min read

    • Article

      A New Take On Neanderthals

      Sep 29, 2023

      A New Take On Neanderthals
      13 min read

    • Article

      Bodies of Knowledge

      Aug 27, 2021

      Bodies of Knowledge
      19 min read

    • Article

      The Rebel Issue

      Apr 8, 2024

      Greetings, Nautilus readers, and welcome to The Rebel Issue. Starting today through the end of April we’re going to bring you stories that revolve around the meaning of rebel. In our own happy rebellion against the conventions of science writing, we’

      2 min read

    • Article

      Challenging Orthodox Science

      Jul 15, 2021

      TO SEND REVIEW COPIES, CONTACT THE BOOK REVIEWS EDITOR AT DVBARRETT@FORTEANTIMES.COM Imants Barušs Imprint Academic 2021 Pb, 228pp, £14.95, ISBN 9781788360418 The late William Corliss was very fond of a particular quotation from the 19th-century psyc

      11 min read

    • Article

      Seeing Art in Medical Archives

      Jun 27, 2018

      Seeing Art in Medical Archives
      8 min read

    • Article

      Crypto-conference

      Jan 25, 2024

      Crypto-conference
      3 min read

    • Article

      Tongue Stones

      May 27, 2022

      Tongue Stones
      5 min read

    • Article

      Tooth Transplants And Pickled Penises: Inside The Revamped Hunterian

      May 12, 2023

      When he wasn’t wrestling his pet bull, slicing open the corpses of freshly hanged criminals, or studying the seasonal changes in sparrow testicles, John Hunter could be found probing the nether regions of female silk moths. The 18th-century surgeon,

      5 min read

    Reviews for The Lady and Her Monsters

    3.5/5

    10 ratings12 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      I found this interesting, but the writing style was kind of boring to me. Also, the author would go off on tangents. Not as interesting as I thought it would be. I had been wanting to read it, so I am glad I did. I can remove it from the list.
    • 5/5
      I read this work with no expectations and was very pleasantly surprised. The author's informative and straightforward style makes for an easy read. The book discusses early medical history pertaining to the possibility of reanimating the dead via electricity (i.e., galvanism) and the grave robbing phenomenon which supported early anatomists' work. Add to this the fascinating history of Mary and Percy Shelley, including Lord Byron, and the end result is a thoroughly entertaining insight into the making of the classic novel Frankenstein.My only mild criticism is that sometimes unnecessary details about peripheral characters can bog down the reader.Highly recommended.
    • 2/5
      The book contains some interesting tidbits but the author doesn't note when she is straying from established fact into guesswork or hotly debated conclusions. This ultimately forces her readers to second-guess everything she writes, even when only some of her statements may actually be questionable.There is also a lamentable dearth of photos and drawings; there are no photos or drawings of most of the people and places mentioned, even when their beauty is described or debated, and even Mary Shelley herself is only allowed one very small drawing (dissected frogs are allowed more drawings than the main subject of the book).The author also either omits entirely, or only mentions in passing, what could be very interesting side-stories. One such example is her mentioning of the real Castle Frankenstein, which Mary Shelley may have visited early in her life, and of Baron Frankenstein once being at war with Vlad the Impaler, a story which she then unforgivably utterly ignores (though more information is available and is very interesting). How can any author ignore a chance to expand on a war between Frankenstein and Dracula?! Another example is her failure to even mention the memorial to Percy Shelley at University College, Oxford, donated by Mary Shelley, which includes a statue of his drowned corpse with, if I recall correctly, a domed ceiling of stars configured as they would have been the night of his death.There is more to complain of. All in all, I am disappointed in what this book is compared with what it could have been. It's still interesting, but I have grave reservations recommending it. It's more of a starting point to your own research than a summary of what is available (and with many interesting bits omitted).
    • 4/5
      I'm guessing most of you have read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. Have you ever wondered about the history of the author and how she came to write such a story before she'd even turned 20 years old? Well, if you didn't um...well you probably won't be interested in what I've just read. If you did, then hold onto your hats! The Lady and Her Monsters: A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr. Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley's Masterpiece by Roseanne Montillo is the book for you! A large portion of the book is dedicated to the history of galvanism (electricity applied to muscles and its reactions) and the preoccupation of reanimation in the early 1800s. This fascination was not relegated to those in the sciences but also crossed over to the literary world as well. This is where the Shelleys come into play. Percy Bysshe Shelley, the poet, had an obsessive interest in galvanism and discussed this at length with his wife who had an equal interest in the subject and in particular, reanimation. Are you seeing where this is headed? The author discusses the history of the sciences while also delving into the marriage of these two iconic literary figures. I'd say the only thing this book was lacking was a more fleshed out appendix (remember I'm an uber nerd who actually reads these things). Other than that, I'd say this was an excellent book. It provided a lot of interesting information on an unfamiliar topic and I find myself wanting to learn more which is definitely the mark of a good book. :-)
    • 4/5
      A cultural biography pondering the real-life influences on Mary Shelley's iconic tale. Lively, fascinating, and macabre.
    • 4/5
      This would be a great October read! A fast-paced and entertaining look at Mary Shelley's inspirations for Frankenstein, including both her life with Shelley and Byron and the macabre world of grave-robbers in 19th century England and Scotland. (Some of the stolen corpses ended up being used in experiments meant to restore life to them.) I don't think it's necessary to be terribly familiar with Frankenstein to enjoy this one, though it does help...
    • 4/5
      The subtitle of this book explains its contents: A Tale of Dissections, Real Life Dr. Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley's Masterpiece. The strength of Montillo's book is her investigation into the scientific activity of early experimenters with galvanism (basically the science of electricity, especially as to how it affects animal bodies and animation) and a detailed account of the grisly activity of body snatchers who tried to satisfy the appetites and needs of anatomists for bodies to dissect and lecture upon in the early years of the 19th century, and how these activities probably influenced Mary Shelley's writing of Frankenstein. Montillo details the work of Luigi Galvan, his follower Giovanni Aldini, and Humphrey Davy, in particular and how their experiments in trying to reanimate the dead fascinated the young poet, Percy Shelley, and in turn, his beloved Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, who would later become his wife. She is also fascinated with the dark history of body snatchers and their shady history with scientists and medical researchers (taking it so far as into very recent history when detectives discovered the supposedly cremated remains of Alistair Cooke had been "doctored" and his bones removed for sale to laboratories and hospitals).The personal details of the Shelleys' lives, their relationships with Byron, Claire Clairmont and other of the Romantic circle that are woven into the story are well-known and not very deep. As is the story of the creation and writing of Frankenstein. The book could be an interesting introduction to Mary Shelley for those who don't know much about her and for those who are interested in the scientific background of the tale.
    • 3/5
      Thoroughly horrifying and well-researched. I would recommend this book to anyone interesting in Frankenstein, the Romantic era, or 18th and 19th century scientific experimentation and discovery. This book treats all aspects of its content with respect and objectivity, even if the content is somewhat obscene and disturbing. The only downfall is the writing. It tries to walk a line between narrative non-fiction and academic content, and kind of fails at both. The prose isn't riveting (though the subject matter is), and sometimes the flow of the story is confusing, jumping between time periods and never really making solid connections between the story, Mary Shelley's actual knowledge and life, and the scientific experiments of the day. But, overall, a good, solid read.
    • 4/5
      When I was approached for a possible review of The Lady and Her Monsters: A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr. Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley's Masterpiece by Roseanne Montillo I jumped at the chance. I haven't read Frankenstein yet, but I do know the basic storyline and I was interested in reading about Mary Shelley. I found that this one left me with some mixed feelings, more good ones than bad though. On the one hand, I enjoyed the creepy atmosphere the author infuses into the book and the history of it. Dissection and galvanism, or using electricity to stimulate corpses and dead animals, are topics that are mainly focused on. On the other hand, I felt like the author was discussing too many different people, events and things, instead of focusing on a just a few things and going more into depth with those. It almost felt like the book was about two separate things; Mary Shelley and her close friends and grave robbing and experiments on human corpses. The book goes back and forth. There seemed to be an obsession with trying to use electricity to bring back the dead and The Lady and Her Monsters goes into depth on quite a few accounts of grave robbers and alchemists. And speaking of human dissection, wow. According to this book, public hangings were interesting spectacles as were the dissections that followed right after. Ew. This book is not for the faint of heart as there are some pretty gory details and a few illustrations concerning dissection. I had to take a breather a few times while reading, and I just skipped some passages altogether. This is my first time reading on the topic of dissection and some of the physicians behind it all, and as for myself, I thought the author did her research. Like I said, I like the creepy atmosphere she creates here. At times I felt like I was reading a scary book based on historical facts. Mary Shelley's life is discussed of course, as are her immediate family and close friends. Her husband was the poet Percy Shelley and their friend was Lord Byron. He was around at the time Mary Shelley began to write the novel that made her famous, Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus. All in all, The Lady and Her Monsters: A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr. Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley's Masterpiece is not for the faint of heart. Like the title suggests, this is a book about dissection, grave robbing, and physicians during the 1800's who were obsessed with experiments on corpses. It is also a book that has details about Mary Shelley and some of her friends and family as well as some information on the history behind her novel Frankenstein. What I found really interesting is that Mary Shelley was given the chance to revise her novel for a new publication, and in 1831 she did. I need to bump it up on my TBR pile.Disclaimer:This review is my honest opinion. I did not receive any type of compensation for reading and reviewing this book. While I receive free books from publishers and authors, such as this one, I am under no obligation to write a positive review. The publisher Harper Collins sent me a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
    • 2/5
      Wa-a-ay too much about the history of body snatching.
    • 4/5
      In The Lady and Her Monsters, literature professor Roseanne Montillo examines the social and scientific background of Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein. Delving into tales of electrical experiments, body snatching, and the decadence of the Romantics, she places Shelley's life and writing within its broader historical context to demonstrate the many influences that led to the penning of Frankenstein.While the subject matter was interesting, I found that Montillo's research and writing didn't quite carry through. For one thing, the jumping around between time periods and situations during the initial chapters was confusing. Montillo dramatized some scenes from her subjects' lives, and it was unclear whether this was backed up by research or was simply her putting words into others' mouths. The number of times phrases such as "They must have thought..." or "they should have wondered..." (emphasis added) were used was one of the things that most irked me while reading this book.Also, it seemed like much of the background lacked substantial connection to Mary Shelley. Sure, medical experiments and body snatching were current topics in Shelley's time, but Montillo didn't provide much evidence of Shelley's actual awareness of and interest in these issues. She discussed them as basically two separate things: on the one hand, scientific experiments tinged with illegal activities that continued decades past Shelley's writing, and on the other hand, Shelley's biography and the publication of Frankenstein. Both subjects seemed to be treated only rather topically. I didn't take much away from the book that I didn't already know. It didn't serve to alter my understanding of the context surrounding Shelley's most famous work, besides perhaps to demonstrate how irritating it might have been to hang around the Shelleys and their friends.
    • 5/5
      A fascinating read being even more than I had expected. It is a biography of Mary Shelley but also contains detailed looks at the lives of many other people from a broad spectrum who were either related to Mary, influenced her or were a part of this period of interest in galvanic science and subsequently those who provided the corpses for the doctors to study and experiment on. Captivating, riveting and shocking reading at many times. I learnt of Mary's parents William Godwin, credited with the first detective novel, her mother Mary Wollstonecraft an outspoken feminist in the 1700s. The gloomy lives of debauchery of both Percy Shelley and especially Lord Byron and Mary's sister Claire. Then we also enter into the eerie early scientific world of galvanism, using electricity to animate corpses, in the hopes that it could somehow prove to help the ill, the paralysed. Mary grew up in this world with bother her parents hosting parties for this type of intellectual society and her future husband, Percy being quite taken with the process. Of course this topic lead easily into the underworld of resurrectionists, or simply put grave robbers, and eventually those who couldn't wait for a corpse so made their own such as the infamous Burke and Hare. A treasure trove of information that kept me spellbound; it's no wonder Mary, as young as she was, had the interest and resources to write this Gothic tale of scientific horror (which at the time seemed shocking coming from a young female). I re-read "Frankenstein" just prior to reading this work of non-fiction and am glad I did, but now that I know where Mary was coming from when she wrote it, including the deaths of her children, I know I will have a new appreciation for the work the next time I read it.