017: A Monster of Many Parts
Pleasing Terrors
Mike Brown
4.9 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 4 April 2017
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Who can forget the classic tale of the mad scientist who creates a gorgeously gruesome Creature, only to become frightened and disgusted by his own creation? Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein is one of the most widely taught examples of Gothic literature, yet most readers don't know the true story behind Shelley's most famous work. Was Frankenstein really the product of a writing competition between friends while on summer vacation, as most people believe it to be, or was the story of the scientist and his Monster born out of a much darker mindset?
Episode Highlights:
- June 1816: The year without a summer
- The feminists daughter
- The twisted love life of Percy Shelley
- An empty crib in the nursery
- Vacations in the villa with Lord Byron
- A ghostly competition between friends
- Reviving the dead with electricity
- The waking dream of Mary Shelley
- Giving birth to Frankenstein's monster
- Who was the mad scientist? Who was the Monster?
Enjoyed this episode? Please support the show by rating, reviewing, and subscribing on iTunes.
Please visit Pleasing Terrors, the podcast behind Old Charleston's best ghost tour, on Facebook and Twitter!
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Some stories were never supposed to be told, Stories that exist in the twilight, |
| 0:15.0 | between science and the supernatural, |
| 0:18.0 | between history and the horror. |
| 0:21.0 | Stories that speak of terrifying things. |
| 0:25.0 | Stories that you want to hear. |
| 0:28.0 | Stories that you need to hear. |
| 0:31.0 | Stories that will sink their teeth in and never let you go. My name is |
| 0:38.4 | Mike Brown and this is pleasing terrors. |
| 0:44.0 | Episode 17, a monster of |
| 0:47.0 | episode 17, a monster of many parts. Oh, The Oh, the. |
| 1:24.0 | The well W W |
| 1:25.0 | . |
| 1:28.0 | . . . . |
| 1:30.0 | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Have you thought of a story yet? That was the question that had been asked of her each day since the contest began, and she was still struggling to think of something. |
| 1:49.0 | But so far an idea for a scary story had alluded her. |
| 1:55.2 | She had spent hours dwelling on the nature of fear. |
| 1:59.1 | What was she afraid of? |
| 2:01.4 | Even though she did not yet perceive it, there was something there, lurking in the shadows of her thoughts, prowling the quarters of her mind. |
| 2:11.0 | It was waiting for the right key to be put into the right lock. It was a monster |
| 2:17.6 | waiting to be given substance, definition. |
| 2:23.0 | Life. It was June of the year 1816, though it did not resemble any June that they could remember. |
| 2:41.3 | 1816 would come to be known as the year without a summer. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Mike Brown, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Mike Brown and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.