English museum shines light on Mary Shelley and her Gothic classic ‘Frankenstein’

BATH: On a window of a Bath townhouse, one of the southwestern English city’s most famous residents looks out at passersby.

Inside is Mary Shelley’s House of Frankenstein, a museum dedicated to the writer and her Gothic novel, published in 1818, which has inspired numerous screen adaptations, with the latest being Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar contender.

“‘Frankenstein’ is regarded as one of the most important books in English literature … It’s the world’s first science fiction novel,” said Chris Harris, co-founder and director of the immersive attraction.

“It’s a very modern story … he’s trying to fit in, but he’s abandoned … and rejected and has prejudice thrown towards him. And you think, well, from prejudice comes violence, which is happening nowadays.“  

‘Fear about change’

Born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, Shelley came up with the idea for “Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus” at 18 years old.

She and her future husband, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, were staying by Lake Geneva in 1816 with Lord Byron when the latter challenged their group to write a ghost story.

She found inspiration there. Back in England, she moved to Bath, where she penned key chapters before finishing the book - about the scientist Victor Frankenstein, who brings to life a creature assembled from body parts - in the town of Marlow.

“It plays on people’s fears about change,” Harris said.

“Now Frankenstein is a metaphor for anything we’re scared of.”

The first “Frankenstein” adaptation was a musical, he said. “The Creature in her book is sensitive, he talks … but in the play, he was rendered into a monster. He didn’t talk, he was mute. He just went around killing people,” Harris said.

“So, right from the off, he’s been sort of invented in a slightly different way. And that’s happened all the way through the evolution of film and theatre … So it’s interesting to see del Toro’s film; they’re exploring a different side of him.”  

Oscar and Bafta nominations

That film, with nine Oscar nominations including best picture, shows actor Jacob Elordi’s Creature as gentle and hungry for knowledge but facing resentment.

Elordi received Best Supporting Actor nods at the Oscars and Sunday’s BAFTA Film Awards, Britain’s top movie honours, where “Frankenstein” has eight nominations.

While del Toro’s movie differs from the book in several ways, including omitting the Creature’s murders, Harris said physically it was “a similar recreation” of Shelley’s description.

The museum has its own animatronic, standing in Victor Frankenstein’s recreated laboratory. Elsewhere, visitors learn about Shelley’s life, tragedies she faced and her interest in science.

Nearby, by Bath Abbey, is a 2018 plaque marking where Shelley lived in 1816-1817 and worked on the book.

Bath is also associated with another female novelist, Jane Austen, who is celebrated annually with a festival. Harris, who opened his museum in 2021, says Shelley deserves more recognition.

“We just want people to understand that this is an extraordinary young woman who came up with one of the most enduring books ever written, that will never go out of fashion.”