Over 200 years after the initial publication of Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, Mary Shelley remains one of the most important figures of Victorian Romanticism. Her work is instrumental in Gothic fiction and has possessed the imaginations of readers for centuries, revealing the innermost layers of the human psyche and our obsession with pushing the limits of nature.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, née Godwin, was born on August 30, 1797, to William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft in London, England. Godwin and Wollstonecraft were two prominent thinkers of the 18th-Century — though Wollstonecraft died of puerperal fever shortly after the birth of her daughter, Godwin doted on Mary and ensured to preserve the intellectual legacy of his partner. Though Shelley did not have a formal education, she escaped into the literary world of her father’s library and could often be found reading by her mother’s grave, entirely on par with her Gothic tendencies as a writer.

Mary Shelley met the man that would become her husband in 1812. Percy Bysshe Shelley was a student of Godwin but soon turned his attention to the young Mary. They eloped in 1814 and formerly married in 1816 after Shelley’s first wife committed suicide. Shortly before getting married, the pair spent a summer in Switzerland with Jane Clairmont, Lord Byron, and John Polidori. It was in such prominent company that Mary Shelley’s own legacy was conceived. The creation of Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was wholly appropriate to the role the novel would take on within the world of gothic horror: on a rainy night in Switzerland, the group was entertaining themselves by reading ghost stories when Lord Byron suggested they try their own hands at writing a horror story. Mary Shelley began working on her novel following the infamous rainy night, bringing her most famous work to fruition in 1818.

Frankenstein was published anonymously and rapidly grew in popularity. Percy Shelley was often miscredited with the writing, seeing as he was responsible for the prologue. The novel, a blend of horror and philosophy, recounts the consequence of a scientist’s attempt at the artificial creation of human life. Shelley wrote several novels after Frankenstein, including such works as Valperga (1823), The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck (1830), Lodore (1835), and Falkner (1837); The Last Man (1826). Her writing largely set the precedent for science fiction and — The Last Man, a true testament to her prophetic literary brilliance, is an account of a 21st-century Europe struggling to battle a worldwide, mysterious pandemic that drove humanity to near extinction.

Mary Shelley died of a brain tumor in early February of 1851, at the age of 53. Her role in literature is indisputable, but Shelley has also had a centuries-long hold on pop culture and cinema.