IT'S (STILL) ALIVE!!

'Hateful day when I received life!' I exclaimed in agony. 'Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemblance. Satan had his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and abhorred.' 

One hundred-and-ninety-six years ago this month saw the first publication of a book by a twenty-year-old girl that would have the most extraordinary impact on literature and, eventually, world-wide popular culture.

That book was Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley.

More recently (a mere nineteen years ago!) I wrote and presented this radio feature about Shelley's book and its mythological status in our contemporary world. Among the programme's contributors is the wonderful and utterly delightful Peter Cushing...

"The world was to me a secret
which I desired to divine."