Frankenstein at 200: A rare story to pass from literature into common myth

While Frankenstein may have thwarted his creature's desire to procreate, Shelley's novel has birthed a seemingly endless stream of adaptations and riffs

At movie awards ceremonies, most winners thank their stars, their agents, their significant others. Guillermo del Toro, during his victory lap earlier this year for The Shape of Water, thanked a teenager who had been dead for more than 150 years.

“So many times, when I want to give up, when I think about giving up,” he said onstage at the British Academy of Film and Television Awards in February, “I think of her.”

Mary Shelley

“She gave voice to the voiceless, and presence to the invisible,” he