Mary Shelley: Mother of science fiction

Source: Wikipedia

Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, The Last Man, and the first science fiction writer. Certainly, there were proto-science fiction stories written before Shelley, but she probably holds the strongest claim to being the first science fiction writer because she wrote more than one book. Although Frankenstein is normally classified as a gothic novel, it was science fiction, pure and simple. It featured a mad scientist (a first) building a creature out of body parts and bringing it to life. It was a story meant to as a warning against the perceived dangers of science. The Last Man was about a plague that ravages the world and is set near the end of the 21st century.
While Jules Verne and H.G. Wells helped refine and bring science fiction into the mainstream, let’s not forget the person who created it.