Glorious Monsters

Martina Devlin has rejoined me because I want to talk about her brand-new novel, which is called Glorious Monsters, and we're going to find out who those monsters are and the milieu in which we find them.

Martina, good morning and welcome.

Thank you.

Uh, the monsters are really people, even though we will refer to Frankenstein in a while.

Well, the monsters, it's up to the reader to, to decide who exactly is the monster, but there are a f- a few candidates.

There's Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, the most radical of the Romantic era poets, Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, Claire Clairmont, Mary's stepsister, and they were all part of the Shelley circle at a really fascinating time in both politics and literature.

Now, I mentioned, uh, in my very opening of the program, Robert Emmet and the link to Frankenstein.

It, it's a bit tenuous, but it's really there.

It exists.

Robert Emmet was engaged to, uh, Sarah Curran, as we know.

She's far from the land where her young hero sleeps.

And Sarah's older sister was Amelia Curran, and she's my narrator.

She really knew the Shelleys.

Um, John Philpot Curran, a famous orator, Master of the Rolls, defended the 1798, uh, rebels, um, and would have defended Emmet but for the connection with his daughter, um, was, knew these people, and they met through him.