Title: Wall, Stone, Craft
Author: Walter John Williams
Date of First Publication: 1993
Place of Publication: Axolotl Press/Pulphouse Publishing (chapbook)
Type: Short Story
Characters: Mary Shelley; Percy Shelley; Claire Clairmont; Lord Byron
Themes: BYRONIC HERO; RACE/POLITICS; WOMEN WRITING MONSTERS; ANDROID; MAD SCIENTIST/MONSTER
Critical Summary: Mary Godwin wakes up in her inn room. She has had a dream of roses and death, which remind her of her deceased mother. She is there with her lover, Percy Shelley, and her step-sister Claire. She goes to the lobby to practice her Italian when she notices two British red coats who could not pronounce her lover’s name. She corrects them and introduces herself to the gentlemen. One of them is named George and he is of higher ranking than the other. He is famous for being the man to capture Napoleon. Mary and her company are invited to have diner with George and his crew. During dinner, their opposing points of view causes them to butt heads, and Mary wants to leave early. As she is heading towards her room, George offers to walk her there. He makes advances on her which she refuses. Mary has a complicated opinion of George. She finds him repulsive, yet physically describes him as very masculine in way that shows she may be attracted to him. Claire is obviously infatuated with him.
As time passes, they all get to know each other, and Percy Shelley is forced to borrow money from George in order to return to London. This infuriates Mary; however, she is unable to do anything about it. George invites the group to a ball and everyone, except Mary, attends. As time goes by they all become well acquainted and George has a child with Claire. He is never there for either of them and soon finds himself another woman. Soon after, they run into a major conflict where the result is a duel. Shelley is exempt from the combat due to Mary. However, George duels Baron von Strickshow with swords on horseback. George wins; however, a wrong turn caused his horse to slip and fall on top of his right leg. He was panicking and in tremendous pain, in order to distract him, Mary told him the story of a Baron who had a disease that caused his limb to decay. As a solution, that Baron used electricity, protoplasm, and body parts from a graveyard to create another man. He held his creation prisoner and used its body parts to replace his own once they decayed. The creature escaped and took revenge. Once Mary ended her tale, the Doctor arrived and helped her deliver her baby and treat George. Mary began to write down her story and named it Frankenstein. This story is a different version of the events leading up to Mary Shelley writing her famous novel.
“Wall, Stone, Craft” is an award-nominated alternative history story in which the characters that had met, in out history, at the Villa Diodati and started the ghost-story compact that led to Frankenstein, instead meet under very different circumstances, with the young Mary Godwin, running away with the married Percy Shelley, meets the young Byron, now a hero of Waterloo, and creates a very different version of her famous tale.
Administrative Notes: Maximiliano Solis Contreras, CSUF; Amanda Howard, CSUF (editing)