Luncheon Program

Mark Canuel:

Frankenstein and the Famous Circle

Union League Club

The story is among the most filmed and parodied ever written, but lost among Boris Karloff’s grunts and Gene Wilder’s rendition of Puttin’ On The Ritz is another, perhaps even more astonishing tale. Imagine a young woman, just 18, and the remarkable literary circle that inspired her to begin a novel that is has been in print for (just) more than 200 years.

That’s the story you’ll hear as Mark Canuel presents Frankenstein and the Famous Circle. Mark is a professor of English and director of the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Much published, his books include The Shadow of Death: Romanticism, Literature, and the Subject of Punishment.

Professor Canuel will invite you into a house near Geneva, on a cold and rainy afternoon during the midst of the terrifying “year without summer”, as Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and others gathered and were challenged to write a horror story.

Mary was galvanized (and perhaps you’ll learn why galvanized is just the right word), wrote a story, expanded it to a novel, and launched an enduring tale of terror.

We’re a little late for the novel’s publication anniversary, but that won’t stop us from having cake for dessert. There will be cake!

February 8 Luncheon: Union League Club, 65 W. Jackson Boulevard. Buffet opens at 11:30 am; program 12:30-1:30. Luncheon is $35. Program free but please let us know you’re coming. Reservations or cancellations for lunch by noon Wednesday the week of the luncheon. Reserve at caxtonclub.org, call 312-255-3710, or e-mail caxtonclub@newberry.org .