The Fear of Pregnancy in Frankenstein can be read as the story of what happens when a man tries to have a child without a woman. It can, however, also be read as an account of a woman's anxieties and insecurities about her own creative and reproductive abilities. The story of Frankenstein is the first articulation of a woman's experience of pregnancy and the fears related to it. Mary Shelley, in The Development and Education of the Monster, discusses the development and education of the child and how the care of a loving parent is extremely important in the moral development of an individual. Therefore, in Frankenstein, Mary Shelley examines her own fears and thoughts regarding pregnancy, childbirth, and child development. Pregnancy and childbirth, as well as death, were an integral part of Mary Shelley's young adult life. She had four children and a miscarriage that nearly killed her. All this before the age of twenty-five. Only one of her children, Percy Florence, survived to adulthood and outlived her. In June 1816, when she had the waking nightmare that became the catalyst for the story, she was only nineteen and had already had her first two children. His first daughter, Clara, was born prematurely on 22 February 1815 and died on 6 March. Mary, like any woman, was devastated and took a long time to recover. The following is a letter Mary wrote to her friend Hogg on the day the baby died. 6 March 1815 My dearest Hogg, my baby is dead - you will come and see me as soon as possible - I would like to see you - He was perfectly well when I went to bed - I woke up in the night to nurse him he seemed to be sleeping so peacefully that I did not want to wake him - he was dead then but we didn't find out until morning......paper medium......frame, Harold. Frankenstein by Mary Shelly. New York: Chelsea, 1987. Garber, Frederick. The autonomy of the self from Richardson to Huysmans. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982.Levine, George. Frankenstein's Resistance. Los Angeles: Moers, 1974. Marder, Daniel. Exiles at Home: A History of Literature in Nineteenth-Century America. Lanham: University Press of America, Inc., 1984.Patterson, Arthur Paul. A study of Frankenstein. http://www.watershed.winnipeg.mb.ca/Frankenstein.htmlSmith, Christopher. Frankenstein as Prometheus. http://www.umich.edu/~umfandsf/class/sf/books/frank/papers/FrankCS.htmlSpark, Muriel. Maria Shelly. New York: Dutton, 1987.Spark and Stanford. My best Maria. New York: Roy,1944.Williams, Bill. On Shelley's use of nature imagery. http://www.umich.edu/~umfandsf/class/sf/books/frank/papers/FrankWJW.html