From Frankenstein to feminism: how electricity powered our imaginations

A new exhibition charts the changing place of electricity in our lives, our homes and in literature

Imagine an invisible power. A force that can affect the world at a great distance, cause damage and healing, bring objects to you, show you images of faraway lands, cast light in dark places, even - sometimes - bring the dead back to life. There used to be a name for a force like that; the name was magic. But of course, that flexible, useful, intangible power has now been our servant for decades, in the form of electricity.

In my novel, The Power, I imagine the changes that come to pass when all of a sudden almost all the women in the world develop the power to electrify - and electrocute - people at will. I liked the idea as soon as I thought of it; it seemed supple enough to bear some metaphorical weight, and less comic than giving women enormous muscles or the ability to emit poisonous gas from their nostrils. But the more I've learned about the history of electricity - fact and fiction - the more I've understood why the image of the electrified woman was such a perfect fit. It's about women and magic, about women's liberation via the promise of the "electrified home", and about the way that electric power makes the weak strong. Although I hadn't put this all together when I started work on the novel, I'm not the first person to imagine women's empowerment as literally electric.