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s.penkevich's Reviews > Mary Shelley: Gothic Tales
Mary Shelley: Gothic Tales (Signature Select Classics)
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‘The more I live, the more I dread death, even while I abhor life.’
Do you believe in ghosts? Gothic Tales, a slim little volume that collects a short story and an essay by Mary Shelley asks this question in the latter, ruminating on why tales of ghosts still capture our attention and fears even as science and reasoning have brushed aside many mysteries and myths of the world. This is a fun little book that serves as a gothic snack for those who may have only read Shelley’s famed Frankenstein and it made for the perfect spooky season treat to read it on this wet and grey autumn day. In it we find Shelley grappling with familiar themes and forcing the reader to confront ideas of death and ask what frightens more, the haunting of a spectral existence beyond the grave or one in which we must cover the corpses of all we know with dirt while being denied the peaceful finality ourselves.
The short story in this collection, The Mortal Immortal was written for a 1834 annual literary collection called Keepsake, who published over half of Shelley’s 21 commissioned stories during her life. The story was inspired by a painting that shows a young man and woman assisting an elderly woman on the stairs, and so in The Mortal Immortal we follow Winzy as he must experience his beloved wife as both a young and old woman while he himself is unable to age. This confessional narrative probes a familiar theme to fans of Frankenstein, showing how those who attempt to subvert or outwit the natural world tend to open up horrors beyond their imaginings. Here we see Winzy find his immortality—or possibly just a long life, the uncertainty of this which haunts him even on his 303rd birthday—to be a curse that drives him to thoughts of self-destruction. There is a fun romantic plot complete with bitterness of a rival, some digs at arranging marriages for finance instead of love, an alchemist and is overall a fun 30pg read.
‘But do none of us believe in ghosts? Shelley asks in her essay On Ghosts. She discusses how the advances in science have taken much of the mystery of the world away but that belief in ghosts still seems to linger. ‘For my own part, I never saw a ghost except once in a dream,’ she tells us, but discusses how ghosts can inhabit the spaces ‘of which we are ignorant.’
Shelley relates three fun tales of hauntings, such as a ghost with hardly a head left and a talking cat, and I enjoyed the subtle dig that she was more willing to relate these tales ‘since they occurred to men,’ a nice barbed statement that she herself is often disbelieved for being a woman.
Gothic Tales is a little Halloween treat that makes for a fun way to pass an evening. Plus the cover art is amazing. So tell me, dear reader, do you believe in ghosts?
3.5/5
Do you believe in ghosts? Gothic Tales, a slim little volume that collects a short story and an essay by Mary Shelley asks this question in the latter, ruminating on why tales of ghosts still capture our attention and fears even as science and reasoning have brushed aside many mysteries and myths of the world. This is a fun little book that serves as a gothic snack for those who may have only read Shelley’s famed Frankenstein and it made for the perfect spooky season treat to read it on this wet and grey autumn day. In it we find Shelley grappling with familiar themes and forcing the reader to confront ideas of death and ask what frightens more, the haunting of a spectral existence beyond the grave or one in which we must cover the corpses of all we know with dirt while being denied the peaceful finality ourselves.
The short story in this collection, The Mortal Immortal was written for a 1834 annual literary collection called Keepsake, who published over half of Shelley’s 21 commissioned stories during her life. The story was inspired by a painting that shows a young man and woman assisting an elderly woman on the stairs, and so in The Mortal Immortal we follow Winzy as he must experience his beloved wife as both a young and old woman while he himself is unable to age. This confessional narrative probes a familiar theme to fans of Frankenstein, showing how those who attempt to subvert or outwit the natural world tend to open up horrors beyond their imaginings. Here we see Winzy find his immortality—or possibly just a long life, the uncertainty of this which haunts him even on his 303rd birthday—to be a curse that drives him to thoughts of self-destruction. There is a fun romantic plot complete with bitterness of a rival, some digs at arranging marriages for finance instead of love, an alchemist and is overall a fun 30pg read.
‘But do none of us believe in ghosts? Shelley asks in her essay On Ghosts. She discusses how the advances in science have taken much of the mystery of the world away but that belief in ghosts still seems to linger. ‘For my own part, I never saw a ghost except once in a dream,’ she tells us, but discusses how ghosts can inhabit the spaces ‘of which we are ignorant.’
‘beyond our soul’s ken, there is an empty space, and our hopes and fears, in gentle gales or terrific whirlwinds, occupy the vacuum.’
Shelley relates three fun tales of hauntings, such as a ghost with hardly a head left and a talking cat, and I enjoyed the subtle dig that she was more willing to relate these tales ‘since they occurred to men,’ a nice barbed statement that she herself is often disbelieved for being a woman.
Gothic Tales is a little Halloween treat that makes for a fun way to pass an evening. Plus the cover art is amazing. So tell me, dear reader, do you believe in ghosts?
3.5/5
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