Many readers will be familiar with "Frankenstein." But I wonder how many know that the story resulted from a friendly contest?

    The author, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851), was connected with several well-known people of the 19th century. Her father, William Godwin, was a political philosopher and novelist. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was also a philosopher, and an early feminist. She died when young Mary was only 11 days old. But before her death, she had written a number of books, including "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" (1792). There she argued that women and men had equal talents, but women appeared inferior because of a lack of education. Her daughter was to prove her correct.

    Mary Shelley's most famous connection was with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. A friend of her father's, Shelley was married, but nevertheless had an affair with Mary. Mary, Shelley, and Mary's step-sister took a trip through Europe; when they returned, Mary was pregnant. The child died; the couple was ostracized from society; and they ran into debt. After Shelley's wife committed suicide, he and Mary were married, when Mary was 19.

    That same year, they spent the summer in Switzerland with another great poet--George Gordon, Lord Byron--along with Mary's step-sister (who had become pregnant through an affair with Byron!) and Byron's young doctor, John William Polidori. This is where the famous contest took place.

    One night, as they sat around a fire in that cold, wet summer, they read some ghost stories aloud. Byron suggested they each write a story themselves. Mary's entry was later published, in 1818, as "Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus." (Incidentally, Polidori's entry, "The Vampyre," became the first vampire story ever published, in 1819.)

    The Shelleys lost two more children; a fourth survived. Percy died in a boating accident in 1822, aged 29. Mary continued to write, and died of a brain tumor when she was 53. Her creation, Frankenstein's monster, has lived on in many film versions.

    Which word above means:

    1. less than, below

    2. a person who supports women's rights, saying men and women are equal

    3. cut off (from); not accepted (by)

    4. a romantic relationship in which one or both partners are married to another person

    5. defense, proof

    6. a supernatural being who drinks people's blood

    7. an abnormal growth in the human body, cancer

    8. by the way

    9. an unnatural creature