‘On This Day in 1816’: The Bicentenary of the Composition of Mary Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN SATURDAY, 23RD JULY 2016

A Public Reading of Romantic Poetry and Prose at the Keats-Shelley House, Rome.

Join us for an evening of readings from the works of Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley, celebrating exactly 200 years since Mary Shelley began to write one of the most famous novels in the English language: Frankenstein. Includes short academic talks by David Higgins (University of Leeds) and Anna Mercer (University of York).

This event at the Keats-Shelley House in 2016 celebrates the bicentenary of the composition of the Romantic period’s most famous novel, and this fruitful period of creativity for both Shelleys in 1816. The event will take place almost exactly 200 years later to the day that Mary Shelley began writing. The evening will include a reading of the preface and the introduction to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the most famous scene in the novel when the creature awakens (‘It was on a dreary night of November, that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils’), and excerpts from Percy Shelley’s ‘Mont Blanc’. Two scholars (Anna Mercer and David Higgins) will give short talks on the Shelleys’ collaborative literary relationship, and 1816 as ‘the Year Without a Summer’.

The event is a public ticketed event and refreshments will be provided. 

To buy tickets (at €10 each) please email <[email protected]>. 

We hope to produce an invigorating atmosphere that will allow attendees to consider the history of Frankenstein during this exciting bicentenary month. The event has been supported by the British Association for Romantic Studies (BARS), the British Society for Eighteenth Century Studies (BSECS), the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies at the University of York, and the Keats-Shelley House.