The secret story behind Frankenstein Day celebrations

August 30 is celebrated as Frankenstein Day — to honour Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. She was born 216 years ago on August 30, 1797. Here are some interesting facts about Shelley and Frankenstein:

Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus, Shelley’s most famous novel, is widely considered the first modern science-fiction novel.

Frankenstein was the name of the scientist — Victor Frankenstein — not the monster. The monster remains unnamed and is referred to only as creature, monster, fiend, wretch, vile insect, demon, being or it.

The first edition of Frankenstein was published anonymously when Mary Shelley was only 20 years old.


Mary Shelley also wrote the first work of modern apocalyptic fiction. The Last Man, published in 1826, tells of a future world where plague has killed off the human population — with, ultimately, one exception. The book is the progenitor of all later stories in this vein, such as Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

It was published in 1818, when Mary was 21, and was a result of a competition between her, her future husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron and John Polidori to see who could write the best horror story.


The novel has inspired more than 130 films, starting with the silent Frankenstein in 1910, when Edison made a onereel, 15-minute film of Frankenstein, one of the first horror movies ever made. It was thought lost until it was rediscovered in the 1950s.