"Frankenstein" was written by a woman, How come I can't find another female author that compares to her work?

Question

"frankenstein" is an undisputed materpiece.and my favorite book of all time I can't think of another female author that has done such a masterpiece. My favorite album of all time is Kick inside by Kate Bush ( NO im NOT gay), and no other woman has done nothing that compares,again another masterpiece. Favorite rock and roll record..X-ray spex "germ free adolescents" all songs written by a woman..polystyrene,,another undisputed masterpiece..How come this happens.

Answer 1

Women are not creative.

Answer 2

First of all, Angels and Demons is not a romance by any stretch of the imagination. Any "romance" in the book was included almost as an afterthought. If you are talking about romantic fiction, take a look at the work of Nicholas Sparks. Do I think women write better romance? It depends on the genre. If it's romance as the genre is defined, I am afraid the answer is yes. Though I've read some really good erotic romance male authors i.e. Scott Carpenter or Reese Gabriel. I don't know if this has to do with the fact that there are substantially more female romance authors than there are males. If we are talking about other genres, then it entirely depends on the author.

Answer 3

First, I don't think you can find many people to agree that Frankenstein is a masterpiece. I think most people who read the literature of that time agree that it is an interesting book that has all the faults you would expect from a book written by a teenager who is copying a lot of the ideas she has heard around her in her home -- you have to remember that Mary Shelley was the daughter of one of the most famous feminists of all time, Mary Wollstonecraft, and her father was also one of the great thinkers of the age, one of the intellectual opponents of Malthus and a major palyer in the European philosophy wars. And, at the time she wrote Frankenstein, Mary was living with the Poet Shelley, and the poet Byron, two of the major writers int he history of the English language. So, I'm not saying that she didnt write it, she did, but she didnt write it in isolation.

And in any case, Mary Shelley was by no means the only women writer of her time. Jane Austen for instance, wrote six novels before she died, all six of them have recently been made into movies or major TV specials. That's pretty good after 200 years. Also, the writer George Sand - a woman who used a male pen name. And Elizabeth Gaskell, just to name a couple.

You need to get out more, I think. The fact that you are considering works like Frankenstein means that you have a good brain and are using it, but there is a lot more out there for you to work on....

Answer 4

I agree with what some other people have said here, that there are a lot of female authors that you are discounting. Mary Shelley was brilliant -- "Frankenstein" is legendarily the product of a horror-story telling contest between the Shelley's and some of their friends, which she won hands down -- but she was not the only one. Hers is a legacy of hundreds of female writers who are great in their own right. If you look from a purely revolutionary standpoint, any female author from the 18th or 19th centuries has to be mentioned simply for the fact that many of them wrote secretly, in their studies by candlelight after the men in their lives had gone to sleep. Then they often had to publish their books under pseudonyms and forgo the praise and fame that would have accompanied them and their work if they had been male. George Sand, George Eliot and Jane Austen are perfect examples, as are the Brontë's, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, who published under male names (Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell). These women were witty and battled against the strains of a patriarchal society that scarcely allowed a woman the freedom to walk to the store unaccompanied. And yet some of the greatest heroines of English literature spring forth from their pages -- Elizabeth Bennett and Jane Eyre to name but two! -- heroines with wit, charm, and courage to be independent in a time when that was unheard of.

And what about a writer like Virginia Woolf, who may not have written great works of fiction but was known for her intelligence and great mind, this despite battling depression for most of her life? As one of the few female members of the incredibly progressive Bloomsbury group, she proved that she was on par with some of the greatest (male) thinkers of the early 20th century, among them T.S. Eliot, J.M. Keynes, and E.M. Forster. Only some of the greatest works of feminist literature were written by her pen. And we cannot overlook recent female contributors to literature: love her or hate her, J.K. Rowling is hugely successful at writing and there are many like her (Phillippa Pearce, Anne Rice, Annie Proulx, just to name a few) who are credible and have written works that are enjoyable to read as well as being thought-provoking.

It's a different case altogether if you just don't like Lizzy Bennett and her story of misapprehensions regarding Fitzwilliam Darcy, or can't stand Jane Eyre's decision to marry Edward Rochester over cousin St. John. There's no point in arguing for the good points of those characters' progenitors if you've read the stories and don't like them, is there? It's up to you to decide what you like and dislike and nobody can tell you that you're wrong. However, it's another thing entirely to say that female writing ended with Mary Shelley.

Answer 5

Hi! I love reading fantasy, but in fact I think that Fantasy written by a woman has a particular style, and I love it very much. Look at Robin Hobb or Katharine Kerr, and others when a woman writes, the plot is different, with less part for battlefields and choice of weapons...
I think that if I have the choice between two fantasy books, one by a man, one by a woman, I'll choose th one from the woman, it has more chance to give me pleasure...
Oh, of course, there are great, wonderful, awesome books by men ;-)

Answer 6

If this is your favorite book of all time, you are in a sad state. There are female authors out there who have written difinitive works in all fields. And in this genre of horror-psuedoscience there are even women that surpass Mary Shelley. You either need to read more or quit reading Frankenstein over and over again.

Answer 7

'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Bronte is my favorite bk & I have read many bks in many genres.
'Middlemarch' by George Eliot ( a pen name for a woman, Marion Evans) was considered the best British novel of the 19th century.

I love K.D. Laing & I'm not gay.

Shania Twain is great & I'm not a country Western fan.

Answer 8

Try Anne Rice, Amelia Atwaters-Rhodes, Patricia Cornwell, and other classic women authors like the Bronte sisters. As far as the music, it is like the books. It depends on what genre you like. Women have great works in all genre's, you just have to open your mind up and listen or look for it.

Answer 9

*rolls eyes*
If you're still going on about how Mary Shelley is the only great female author, my advice is to open your eyes, get out and see the real world. There are so many great masterpieces out there that you will bite your tongue for saying this.

Answer 10

Can you not read. Anne McCaffrey, Julian May, Marion Zimmer Bradley. 3 authors from the top of my head that have all written great novels. Surely it does not matter the sex of the writer but what and how they write.

Answer 11

What about Anne Radcliffe? She was also from romanticism (almost...) and her books are also about mistery and have that climate... Mery did well in her book, however her husband will probably always be more respectable as an author...