You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our

disbelief. I'm Eric Milinski.

Good afternoon, my good fiend. And welcome now to the creature double feature. This afternoon,

weird and wicked strange. When I was a kid, I used to watch the creature double feature on Channel

56, a local station in Boston.

Although I can't say I loved watching those movies because they often scared me, but I couldn't

look away. The fact that many of them were in black and white made them feel even creepier,

like they were lost worlds from long ago. Today's episode is a creature double feature of sorts.

I have revised and re-edited two previous episodes about the origins of Frankenstein and

Dracula, the novels, not the movies.

This is partially in honor of Halloween, which is my favorite holiday. But also in the next episode,

I'll be interviewing Tamara Deverell. She is the production designer on the new Frankenstein film,

directed by Giermold del Toro. And Giermold del Toro's adaptation draws a lot of inspiration from

Mary Shelley's vision. In fact, today's episode is all about inspiration,

inspiration and a little bit of speculation. So let's get back to where it all began in the

imagination of a teenage girl over 200 years ago. To understand Mary Shelley, we need to start with her mother, Mary

Wollstonecraft. She was a controversial advocate for women's rights who believed that marriage,

under English law, was a type of indentured servitude. Mary Wollstonecraft died from complications giving birth to Mary Shelley, who felt haunted by the mother that she never knew.

It doesn't seem to me to be a coincidence that the author of Frankenstein would be someone who was longing for her dead mother.

Charlotte Gordon wrote a dual biography of both women, mother and daughter.

She made her piece on some level with the idea that her mother couldn't come back, but not

really.

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