On being told that they had been bitten by a venomous snake, most eight-year-olds would panic. Not Nicholas Jubber; he was not terrified but disappointed by a diagnosis that contradicted his own. Nich

Piecing together the inspirations and evolution of Mary Shelley’s famous monster

Guillermo del Toro’s version of Mary Shelley’s myth

Tennyson’s embrace of science and catastrophe theory

A mature and wide-ranging exploration of undead folklore

Taking as many guises as his names, the Prince of Lies turned at times into a man-devouring ogre, a mutant medley of claws, horns and wings, or the brooding rebel that lit the imagination of Romantic painters, as Carla Passino discovers