One of the most infamous Halloween icons is the brain dead creation Frankenstein. The story of Frankenstein is a really weird concept, especially given the time it was written, but the story of how Mary  Shelley got it published is just as interesting.

When Shelley was 18 years old, she gave birth to a child, but only a few days later her baby died of unknown circumstances. Every night, she  was haunted by images of her passed baby.

Shelley’s friends inspired her to begin writing again, and  the image of her dead child refused to leave her mind. She began to reminisce on her life, and remembered when her husband visited the Ringe (Frankenstein’s tower). There were intense rumors of a guy t living in that tower who stole dead bodies from multiple graveyards. He would supposedly take the corpses  home and inject them with a multitude of things to bring them back to life. When Shelley heard this, she thought it was weird that someone would even try to play the role of God.

Later that night as she laid in bed, her imagination kept her up. She had a vision of a pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling besides something he had put together. She saw some hideous thing, similar to a man, stretched out lying on a table, and then some powerful machine brought that man looking thing to life. 

She described it as an uneasy, half vital motion. That weird dream had brought the idea of Frankenstein to life, and her husband wrote the introduction to her book. 

Due to the fact that  her husband had written the introduction, everyone believed the story of Frankenstein was created by a man. Nobody even thought that a woman had the capability of writing such a unique and interesting novel. 

So when Shelly finally published her book on January 1st, 1818, people had still given all the credit to her husband for three years until later on when her book was published again in Paris, and she finally got the credit for her writing. 

Years later when movies became popular, they made multiple movies of Frankenstein with different versions of him, or they created new characters but they all had one thing in common. Every movie based on Frankenstien always has some type of mad scientist with a hunchback creating some zombie looking man creature or zombie looking woman thing. 

Popular   Frankenstien retellings are “Edward Scissor Hands”, the “Bride Of Frankenstein”,. and even the movie “Igor”. 

If you don’t know, “Igor” is a animated film by Tim Burton, the creator of “Corpse Bride”, that is about a creature being assembled who is brought to life by a scientist just like every Frankenstin movie.

Now Frankenstien is one of the first ghost stories to pop into your head when you think of halloween icons and will always be remembered as the horrifying creation brought from death into life.