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Mary is a rebellious and outspoken teenager. When she meets the poet Percy Shelley, there’s a spark of attraction between the two outsiders who feel trapped within polite society. When Mary’s family discover that Percy is married with a child, they forbid any further contact. Mary and Percy elope, taking Mary’s half-sister Claire along for the ride. It’s a scandal, and with Percy’s philandering ways, rumours of a ménage à trois are whispered everywhere they go. Claire willfully flirts her way into the affections of poet Lord Byron, and Mary is relieved when they are asked to join the decadent poet at his house in Lake Geneva.
During one stormy summer night, to distract Mary from Percy’s infidelities, Lord Byron suggests they all write a ghost story. All the pain and guilt that Mary feels about Percy, Claire and the child she lost, is poured into giving birth to Frankenstein’s Monster. The story is incredible, a classic that even Percy must acknowledge. But women don’t write books, and publishers certainly won’t print them. The rebel rises, and Mary fights for her creature and her identity, all at the age of eighteen.
'MARY SHELLEY' STORIES
Win one of five double passes to see 'Mary Shelley' in cinemas, starring Elle Fanning and Douglas Booth.
'Mary Shelley' is a serviceable biopic that features a strong turn from Fanning and decent performances elsewhere but she deserves more than a linear, Wikipedia-style trawl through her life.