The Lady and Her Monsters: A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr. Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley's Masterpiece


The intersections between science, history, and literature (and especially literary horror and sci fi) are of particular interest to me, so I was expecting this to be a four star or five star read. The author does have a lively writing style and she can tell (write) a good anecdote. That good writing, lots of interesting bits and pieces, and my interest in the subject kept me reading until I finished this book in one sitting. But I found the book disjointed, jumping from topic to topic with no apparent logic or overriding organization. I can appreciate a book that tells what it has to tell in multiple threads, IF those threads come together in the end. But while all the topics covered in this book have a definite connection to Mary Shelley and her seminal novel, it is never clear why the author abandons one topic to take up another any of the times she does so. And while the many topics are related, the author never seems to find it appropriate to discuss how she sees those connections. Perhaps this book can be most enjoyably read as a collection of loosely related essays on an assortment of topics from the Victorian era.

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