Hideous Love: The Story of the Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein (14 page)

I selected my characters’ names

as deliberately as I chose

my children’s names.

Victor is a pen name Percy

used in his youth

and referential to Milton’s God

from
Paradise Lost
. Frankenstein

alludes to a castle we visited

on our elopement back when

I was sixteen. William,

Victor’s younger brother,

contains multiple connotations

for me from my father

to my stepbrother to my son.

William would have been my own name

had I been born a boy.

And Elizabeth, Victor’s adopted sister

whom he marries, recalls

both Shelley’s favorite sister

and his mother.

I base my story

on traditional gothic folklore

about the alchemist or sorcerer

who relentlessly seeks knowledge

that would best remain unknown,

where the ego of the sorcerer

leads to his downfall.

I explore the renewal of life

as I would wish

more than anything

to have my baby, my sister,

my mother, and Harriet brought

back to me, but science

like a foundling branch

reaches only so far.

I also try to investigate

how sometimes

that which we create

can destroy us

or those we love.

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ALBION HOUSE

March 1817

As we now receive

an annual income

from Shelley’s inheritance

we renovate a new home

on West Street in Marlow

called Albion House.

With five large bedrooms,

a fir-shaded garden,

and a library that houses

all of our books

and two full-sized statues

of Venus and Apollo,

our home is blessed with love and poetry.

I labor on the final

chapters of
Frankenstein
.

The novel takes

hold of me like a carriage

drawn by wild horses.

I cannot stop its progress.

It is now a story within

a story within a story.

The manuscript grows

to novel length this way,

and I also distance myself

a bit from some of the emotion,

as the characters sat a little too close

to the real people in my life.

All three of my storytellers

are male. The first, Robert Walton,

is an explorer seeking to reach

the North Pole. He writes letters

to his sister about saving Victor Frankenstein,

the doctor who has animated a creature

from grave-stolen body parts.

When Walton meets Victor,

Victor pursues his Creature

to the end of the earth.

Victor then recounts

his story to Walton

and finally within Victor’s tale

is the story narrated by

the monster himself,

the tale of the monster’s plight.

I am encouraged

by the progress of the novel

and think I see my way

to the light of the end.

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CHILDREN

March 1817

I am pregnant again,

the baby due

at the end of the summer.

The idea of increasing

my family pleases me

like one who does not realize

she is hungry but then

when presented with a well-prepared feast

relishes in the food.

It also inspires me to finish

my book before the baby’s arrival.

Shelley loses his custody

fight for his children by Harriet,

but so do the Westbrooks.

Charles and Ianthe are assigned

neutral guardians by the courts.

Shelley is required to send them money

and is granted visitation.

My love’s heart pains

over this decision,

but then he seems

to forget his first two children

almost as if they have died.

He will never again visit them.

I cannot understand this

as I would rather

cut off my tongue and give up writing

than be separated

a day from my own children.

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MY BOOK

April 1817

To write a book

for me is as to finally

truly breathe,

my senses

engaging with the world.

I cannot be assured of

exactly what I created

be it madness and monster

or beauty and light,

but I tried to apply both

what I have learned

and read and observed

and that which

I can only imagine

and think and dream.

And more

than anything

I want to make

my father

proud.

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THE END

May 1817

I end my book

with these lines,

“‘But soon,’ [the monster] cried,

clasping his hands,

‘I shall die, and what

I feel will no longer be felt;

soon these thoughts—these

burning miseries will be extinct.’

… [The monster] sprung

from the cabin window …

and I soon lost sight of him

in the darkness and distance.”

Shelley grasps my hand

as he reads my final words.

“The ending is the hardest part.

To leave behind a book

can feel as though

you separate a portion

of your heart

from your chest.

But my love

what you have written

is majestic.

You have served

your name well.”

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SUMMER

Summer 1817

Now that I have finished a draft

of
Frankenstein

and must send it to publishers,

I endeavor to go through

the journal Shelley and I kept

describing our elopement together

in 1814. I keep my mind

engaged in writing so I do not

worry about whether or not

Frankenstein
sees print.

I call this travelogue

History of a Six Weeks Tour
.

It should be easier to publish

as travel books are very popular.

Shelley becomes known

as the town eccentric this summer,

not because he gives blankets

and food and money to the poor,

but because he tutors a village girl, Polly Rose.

His unconventional ways of oratory

where he flails his arms around

caught up in the rapture of his ideas

frighten some of the locals.

I adore when he gets

that fire in his eyes

and his emotions

bubble over the surface.

Claire still pines after Lord Byron

like the starving eye chocolate

and only her child seems to quench

her despair over him.

My pregnancy causes

me no troubles, thank goodness.

I grow excited for the new baby.

I nest as any proper mother would,

preparing space in our home

for its arrival, readying the nursery

like a bird gathering twigs,

and putting all of my literary tasks

in order.

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A PUBLISHER

Late Summer 1817

At the end of the summer

I find a small publisher

who will bring out five hundred

copies of
Frankenstein

in the late winter.

The book will be published

anonymously,

with Shelley writing the preface

and referring to his friend

as having written the book.

As I have no stature

it would only damage the book

to attach my somewhat

notorious name to it.

Because of his contribution,

even uncredited, it may

be assumed that Shelley

wrote the book.

Still I elate, the book

that Shelley nurtured with me—

my first literary endeavor

will be published.

This book will be born.

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ANOTHER BIRTH

Autumn 1817

On the second of September

I give birth to a baby girl

we name Clara Everina,

after Claire and my mother’s sister.

I am exhausted after this birthing

and can’t seem to produce

enough milk for the baby.

I refuse to have a wet nurse though.

My mother thought

that sort of child rearing

a bad idea, so I struggle

like a mother bird

in the depth of winter

to feed my child.