Robert Symes investigates the background to Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein. Was her idea for creating human life based on fact? And who was the original Frankenstein?
In January 1889 the body of Crown Prince Rudolph, heir to the immense Austro-Hungarian empire, was found in his hunting lodge at Mayerling near Vienna. Next to him lay the corpse of his mistress, the 17-year-old Baroness Mary Vetsera. Both of them had been shot through the head. Was it a suicide pact? Was it murder? Why was Mary buried secretly at night? What happened to the gun? How - and why - did Crown Prince Rudolph and Mary Vetsera die?
