The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein
The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein is a 2007 book written and published by John Lauritsen, in which the author argues that the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, not his wife Mary Shelley, is the real author of "Frankenstein" (1818), that the novel "has consistently been underrated and misinterpreted", and that its dominant theme is "male love". Lauritsen maintains that handwriting cannot be used to determine the actual author of "Frankenstein". His work received positive reviews in gay publications. However, some commentators in other publications rejected Lauritsen's views and supported the conventional view that "Frankenstein" was written by Mary Shelley.
The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein
Lauritsen argues that Percy Bysshe Shelley, not his wife Mary Shelley, is the real author of "Frankenstein" (1818), that the book "has consistently been underrated and misinterpreted", and that its dominant theme is "male love" or homoeroticism. Lauritsen criticizes feminists for constructing "a Mary Shelley myth, according to which she was a major literary figure, one whose genius had been overshadowed - not only by her husband, but also by the other "male" Romantics: Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Keats." According to Lauritsen, Percy Bysshe Shelley did not want his authorship of "Frankenstein" to be known to the public, and for unknown reasons decided to attribute authorship to Mary Shelley, thus helping to begin a "hoax" that has persisted up to the present. Lauritsen maintains that revisions to "Frankenstein" made in 1823 and 1831 weakened the work, and that while it was ostensibly Mary Shelley who revised "Frankenstein" into its 1831 form, it may primarily have been revised by the political philosopher William Godwin.