Marry Shelley

In 1818, Mary Shelley wrote her most popular work: Frankenstein, but, there are several suggestions to why and/or how Mary Shelley came up with this story and plot-line.

Most scholars and other writers believe she either:

• had an obscene vision during an opium waking dream, or nightmare:

During the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, opium, a highly addictive narcotic, was a drug popularly used by writers, artists, and philosphers. The drug was used to stimulate creativity and promote their imagionation to stretch as more so than others. There is a theory that Mary Shelley had conceived the idea from a waking dream in whish she saw "the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together." Mary Shelley's use of this narcotic drug is very possible, but not know as actualy fact.

• participated in a scary story contest with a rival poet

Mary and her husband, poet and philosopher Percy Shelley, stayed with friends one summer (in the early 1800's) at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva in Switzerland. Supposedly, the weather was consistantly cold and dreary, so the group began discussing science and telling tales of the paranormal and supernatural. This eventually led to a friendly competition to compose the scariest story. This is sometimes said to be the birth of our monster, and the tale of Victor Frankenstein.

• furthered her thought about bringing her baby, who had died several month before, back to life

It is also rumored that Mary Shelley lost a baby in previous months to writing this classic, and she actually imagioned rubbing it and reviving to live again. In her earlier life, Mary Shelley was disowned and disinherited from her father for running away with Percy Shelly, who was already married. These two combined ideas led to the created of her novel, Frankenstein.

There is historical evidence to back up all of these theories, but we can never sure of which is fact or folly.
Which theory would you believe?