The Heart That Didn't Burn: Mary Shelley's Life, and Literary Creation

The mysterious tale of an unburned heart, a literary masterpiece born from a ghost story competition, and the enduring legacy of a 20-year-old author's imagination all come together in our exploration of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. 

We journey through the fascinating life of the woman who created one of literature's most iconic monsters and the peculiar circumstances surrounding her marriage to poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Just as Mary Shelley transformed a friendly writing contest into a revolutionary work that defined the science fiction genre, we believe everyone has the power to create their own destiny. Join us on this journey through literature's darkest corners and discover how these stories can inspire your own creative potential. 

Email us at info@melancholymentor.com to continue the conversation or share your thoughts on this enduring masterpiece.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Melancholy Mentor
• 0:57 Introduction to Frankenstein
• 1:57 Mary Shelley's Background
• 5:30 Percy Shelley's Unusual Death
• 7:54 Mary's Burial with Percy's Heart
• 9:11 The Weird Circle Radio Drama
• 11:42 Behind Our Creative Process

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello everyone and welcome to Melancholy Mentor, where classic literature meets the vibrant world of radio plays. I'm Fran and I'm joined by Evan from Mystery Mythos. Together, we're your guides on this creative journey. During each episode, we'll dive into stories featured on the Melancholy Mentor channel, allowing fresh ideas to flourish, inspiring you to dream big and unlock your creative potential. Get comfy, open your mind and embrace curiosity. Let's get started. Hello, I'm Fran.

Speaker 2: 0:41

And I'm Evan.

Speaker 1: 0:43

And today we're delving into Frankenstein. I love Frankenstein. Do you Frankenstein, dr Frankenstein or Frankenstein's monster? Each week we are bringing you a highlight of an episode that we've got on our YouTube channel, melancholy Mental, and today's highlight is Frankenstein. The Frankenstein radio drama delves into the chilling world of Dr Victor Frankenstein and his dark secrets and the monstrous consequences of his forbidden experiments. Frankenstein or the modern prometheus yeah, the gothic novel by english author mary shelley. It was first published anonymously in london in 1818, when, when Mary Shelley was 20 years old, her name appeared in the second edition, which was published in Paris in 1821.

Speaker 1: 1:54

All right, so there's a bit more to come on Mary Shelley. As always with these episodes that we do, we do some research on this and then just bring you some information. So it's about highlighting the episodes that we've got on the channel and the reason that we have got a radio drama youtube channel. There's another one of them as well, which is mystery mythos, where evan comes into. It is because because not only do we love listening to them and we love books and literature, it's about bringing creativity to you. It's about inspiring people that they can do something as well and be creative. So I'm actually a neuro-linguistic programming coach and my main thing is to motivate and inspire people that they can create their actual selves that they choose. So you can create the life that you choose. You can create the version of you that you choose, and that's why we're doing this. So a bit more about Mary Shelley, about Mary Shelley.

Speaker 1: 3:17

So the story has it that in 1816 Mary Percy was possibly her then or to be husband, yeah, um, somebody called John um, who these were like romantic kind of poets of the time and lord byron. So this is happening in england. They had a competition to see who would write the best horror story. Yeah, and that's where mary then started to get the inspiration to write Frankenstein. So Mary Warstonecraft Shelley was born in 1797 in London, england. She passed away in 1851 and she was aged 53. She actually died after a long illness which was possibly caused by a brain tumour.

Speaker 2: 4:10

A pricot.

Speaker 1: 4:11

So it's quite interesting that sometimes you look back in history and people can be diagnosed with certain conditions or their deaths can be looked at like way back to see, you know, to determine how they actually died or things that they suffered from or you know from the bones and things like that. They can even tell people had arthritic conditions and stuff. So I think it's sort of since being studied and looked back on, that potentially her symptoms match that of a brain tumour. Yeah, she had migraines and she was ill prior to her death. So Mary married Percy and it's by she, by she's Shelley in 1816.

Speaker 1: 5:10

So if you've got any fact checking that's kind of different to ours, then by all means please. You know we'd love you to get involved on the Melancholy Mental channel or you're welcome to email us and I'll drop the email at the. I'll say the email at the end of this podcast. So percy was an english romantic poet and he died when his boat sank I think it actually overturned off the coast of italy in 1822 and he was with a couple of friends at the time. This is where it starts to get a little peculiar yeah because Percy Shelley's heart was actually given to Mary.

Speaker 1: 5:58

Mary wasn't there at the time of his death, so he was cremated. But actually this was that he was actually burnt on the beach where he was temporarily buried and I think possibly like his friends arranged this or something yeah, yeah his heart didn't burn and this could be because it was calcified due to the nature of his death and the fact that he had previously contracted tuberculosis.

Speaker 1: 6:32

So, again, looking into why his heart didn't burn, so you know, did they grab it out of the funeral pyre and, yeah, you know, pop it in their pocket and then take it to mary, um. So mary shelley is actually buried in bournemouth, which is a town in England on the south coast, and it's in the county of Dorset yeah and she's buried in an old graveyard with Percy's heart, so the resting place is often surrounded by flowers from people paying their respects.

Speaker 1: 7:10

And we've actually been there, haven't we? Evan? To Mary Shelley's gravesite. Yeah, it was amazing. Yeah, it's right in the town centre of Bournemouth and it's a very, very old graveyard, yeah, and the gravestone itself is actually very clear to read, yeah, really clear. Just some beautiful little delicate flowers sort of placed there. There was even some letters, yeah, yeah, from people just paying their respects. Fancy for work. You know, possibly, the way that her literary work touched people and they want to write about it and they actually leave letters there.

Speaker 2: 7:50

Yeah, yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing to see, wasn't it?

Speaker 1: 7:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the burial place of Mary is actually the family vault and it's at St Peter's Church in Bournemouth Town Centre. Percy's heart was found after her death by her son, percy. So her husband was called Percy, she had a child, and then her son was called Percy, then Her son was called Percy and it was found after her death in her desk, apparently, and the story has it that he had it encased, not the desk, the heart, he had the heart encased in silver and then buried into the family vault. So not only is Mary Shelley the author of the story frankenstein, there's also a just a big story surrounding not only her death but the death of her husband as well. Yeah, and it's all rather peculiar, isn't it? It?

Speaker 2: 8:58

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 8:59

Yeah, yeah, really interesting. So have you got some information to bring about the actual radio drama that we've got on the channel?

Speaker 2: 9:11

Yeah, I do. This adaptation was by the Weird Circle. We've actually got some other radio dramas that we've spoken about before that are by the Weird Circle, but this was actually like a supernatural horror and fantasy radio drama that aired from like 1943 to 1945. So it had a like a lot of episodes that were made. It was produced in New York and then it was like broadcast out onto various different radio stations across the country. There was two seasons of it and 78 episodes all in all, which last in 30 minutes. So it was like up to 30 minutes. This episode's like 26 minutes long, so anywhere up to that. And this episode aired on February, the 20th 1944, and it's an old one. Yeah, it's a really old, it's a really old one. It still sounds, still sounds good. The introduction to each one, when you listen to it, is quite eerie, um. So it's like quite cool how they've got this little intro that kind of leads into it.

Speaker 1: 10:23

Um, and this, the video for this, was actually filmed at sandbanks okay, so sandbanks is an area in paul in england in the county of dorset, which is next to the town of bournemouth. Yeah so, and I'm actually based in paul in in dorset, so bournemouth's just up the road from me, and sandbanks is also called millionaires row yeah it's like a little peninsula area of paul and it's where all the all the millionaire properties are yes, where all the?

Speaker 1: 11:02

millionaires hang out. Yeah, why not? What happens is, with the episodes, that we've got their audio and they come as audio only. So I actually go out and just film parts of the seaside or the countryside while I'm out and about. Evan then takes the videos, edits them and overlays the the radio drama audio on top of it. So it's mainly for the audio, but we do provide a video as well for people just to relax to. There's also black screen episodes on the channel um that are purposely made for people to sleep to. Yeah, yeah, so they're available on the channel. That are purposely made for people to sleep to yeah.

Speaker 1: 11:44

So they're available on the channel as well. And the podcast episodes that we do are also available on the channel and they go out on other platforms as well. So our email is info at melancholymentorcom. You are welcome to email us if you want to fact check any of our information. We're literally just looking it up. So you know we're not scholars in this. We're passionate about bringing creativity to people and, you know, highlighting the episodes that we've got on the channel. So you're welcome to email us. Or if you want to find out anything else about what we do and what we get up to, or the channels the youtube channels that we've got. Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you bye.