On January 1, 1818, the first edition of Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was published anonymously in London. The author, Mary Shelley, was only 20 years old. It wasn’t until the publication of the second edition, in 1823, that Shelley was given credit for her book. This year we are seeing a surge in books commemorating the 200th anniversary of the book’s publication.
Mary Shelley was a woman ahead of her time. I think she would enjoy reading these books by female authors.
This seems to be the summer of the documentary for me. I recently went to the movie theater to watch RBG, the biography of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and was pleasantly surprised to see a multi-generational audience sitting in cross-generational groups. There were at least two grandmother-granddaughter pairings. And that got me wondering, if Ruth Bader Ginsburg were a teen now, what would she read?
According to the documentary, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a serious young woman, not given to small talk. When she had something to say, however, she was thoughtful, articulate and powerful. She spent much of her career working for women’s rights, often coming back to the line in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that promised everyone “the equal protection of the laws.”
