The Stress of Her Regard

Title: The Stress of Her Regard

Author: Tim Powers

Date of First Publication:  1989

Place of Publication: New York, NY: Ace

Bibliographic Reference: isfdb

Type: Novel

Character: Percy Shelley; Lord Byron; Claire Clairmont; Mary Shelley; John Trelawney

Critical Summary: In a whirlwind of references and characters, Tim Powers takes the reader on a journey across Europe with Mary Shelley and her circle. Michael Crawford, the protagonist, has fallen into the folly of an accidental engagement to a vampiric “muse” resting in the shape of a stone statue. In a drunken game, Crawford, to be wedded the following day, placed his wedding ring on the statue’s finger. After rushing out the next morning, he finds that the ring has gone missing. The statue turns out to be a mythological seductress, a vampire or incubus, the one apparently responsibly for the drowning of Percy Shelley. The connection between Frankenstein is made with the introduction to Mary Shelley and with Percy Shelley’s vital role within the plot of the novel. Fellow Romanticists Keats and Byron also make an appearance in the novel’s plot. The poet’s muse also is directly connected to Keats’s tuberculosis and death in Rome. By directly appearing in The Stress of Her Regard alongside Shelley and Keats, Lord Byron also serves as a crucial connection to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, as he influenced Mary Shelley to create Victor Frankenstein.

Administrative Notes: Rebekah Kromm, CSUF