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.
Frankenstein authorship question
These arguments have been disputed as being mere coincidences. Leslie S. Klinger, in "The New Annotated Frankenstein" (2017), argued it is spurious to maintain "that the biographical coincidences of Victor Frankenstein and Percy Shelley are evidence of Percy's authorship". Instead, critics rely on the handwriting evidence and Mary's statements in the 1831 Introduction to the novel.