The Mortal Immortal

This evening I stumbled upon a delicious short story by Mary Shelley called "The Mortal Immortal." I listened to the Librivox recording (read by David Barnes, who has a very soothing English accent) while knitting.

Mary Modern has an obvious debt to Frankenstein, and yet I'm unfamiliar with any of her other works. Her personal life fascinates me though--I've heard much about her writing Frankenstein at a very young age (18?) as part of a scary-story competition during a house party (if one could call it that) in some great gloomy castle with Shelley and a few of their friends, and about how Shelley left his wife for her and wife #1 had to commit suicide before they could marry (though they already had a couple kids together by that time); but the story that really intrigues me has to do with the young Mary bringing her books to the graveyard to study at the grave of her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, and how she and Percy Shelley had their illicit meetings there. It really sounds like Mary Shelley not only wrote gothic stories--she lived one as well.

Anyway, read or listen to "The Mortal Immortal." It's wonderful.