We will read and discuss the original 1818 version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The novel  overflows with endlessly fascinating themes: beauty and horror; creation and responsibility;  friendship and fiendship; belonging and alienation; social justice; dangerous knowledge;  revenge; the limits of ambition. The writing is tantalizing: an epistolary novel with multiple embedded narratives. 

Mary Wollestonecraft Shelley (1797-1851) wrote Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus in  1816 while on a trip to Lake Geneva with her future husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and  friends, including Lord Byron. It was published anonymously in 1818; Shelley subsequently  made extensive revisions to it in 1831. 

Liffey Thorpe grew up in Washington D.C. She studied at St. John’s College, Annapolis, then  earned a B.A. in Greek and a Ph.D. in Classics from Stanford University. She taught Classics at  Earham College for 25 years. She and her husband, Peter Suber, moved to Brooksville with  their two daughters in 2003. Liffey taught English, Philosophy, and Latin at George Stevens  Academy until 2008, and then served as the school’s Communications Director until 2019.