Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
'Frankenstein seemed to predict things that it couldn't possible have imagined and one of them is this terrible gothic moment of opening a child's grave and finding instead the body of an unknown adult.'
In this episode from their Close Readings series 'Man Behind the Curtain', Tom McCarty and Thomas Jones look at Frankenstein and the machinery that Mary Shelley used to assemble her immortal creature and bring it to life.
Watch the episode: youtu.be/_s4w5yIHA6I
ABOUT THE LRB
The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance.
As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
'Frankenstein seemed to predict things that it couldn't possible have imagined and one of them is this terrible gothic moment of opening a child's grave and finding instead the body of an unknown adult.'
In this episode from their Close Readings series 'Man Behind the Curtain', Tom McCarty and Thomas Jones look at Frankenstein and the machinery that Mary Shelley used to assemble her immortal creature and bring it to life.
Watch the episode: youtu.be/_s4w5yIHA6I
ABOUT THE LRB
The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance.
As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
