Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was born in London on August 30th 1797, to the celebrated feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft and the radical philosopher William Godwin.

We know her better as Mary Shelley, the British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, who also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley.

In 1816, the couple famously spent a summer with Lord Byron, John William Polidori, and Claire Clairmont near Geneva, Switzerland, where Mary conceived the idea for her novel Frankenstein, one of the most chilling and gruesome horror stories ever written and certainly one of the most famous.

The story of Doctor Frankenstein and the horrendous monster he unleashes on the world when he tinkers with the laws of nature is told in a wonderfully chilling audiobook by the great English actor, Sir Derek Jacobi . His unabridged reading of Frankenstein is available only from Silksoundbooks.