Ep. 1 Frankenstein: a monster rises on the shores of Lake Geneva

Part book club, part travel guide, part history podcast, Season 1 of A Book - A Place: Geneva takes you on five literary adventures.

Episode 1: Frankenstein: a monster is born on the shore of Lake Geneva

The book: Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, by Mary Shelly, published in 1818

The place:  ‘Frankie’ a.k.a ‘The Creature of Doctor Frankenstein’ statue in Plainpalais, Geneva by KLAT, 2014

Everyone knows something about Frankenstein, the archetype horror movie monster.

But what about the birth of the story, which is now seen as perhaps the first horror novel, the first work of what would become known as science fiction, and, for today’s readers, still one of the most thought provoking tales about artificial intelligence.

As we’ll hear, Frankenstein was born, not in a mad scientist’s laboratory, but in a genteel villa on the outskirts of genteel Geneva.

More books:

• Mary, or the Birth of Frankenstein, by Anne Eekhout, 2023, novel mentioned in the podcast
• Le Genève de Victor Frankenstein, by Augusta Dunsterville, 2016: good guide for walking tours around places linked to Frankenstein
• All the Parts of the Soul, Quill & Crow, 2023, novel by Catherine Fearns, who features in the podcast
• History of a Six Weeks’ Tour through a part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland, 1817, memoir by Mary and Percy Shelley

More places:

• Villa Diodati, where Byron and his retinue stayed in 1816
• Byron’s Field (Le Pré Byron), next to Villa Diodati
• Le Salève, (mountain that overlooks Geneva, accessible by cable car)
• Chamonix, ‘capital city of the French Alps’, where Victor meets the monster

Even more…

• Penguin Random House page on Frankenstein
• Lake Geneva as Shelley and Byron Knew It – New York Times
• ‘Frankenstein’ Was Born During a Ghastly Vacation – History.com
• In the footsteps of the Shelleys: Switzerland and Mont Blanc – Wordsworth.org
• Ghost stories, opium and rain: the doomed holiday that inspired Shelley’s Frankenstein – Penguin
• Bright city, dark legend: how Geneva gave birth to Frankenstein – FLUX magazine

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