What Is Mary Shelleys Purpose for Writing the Introduction to Frankenstein?

1818 novel by Mary Shelley

Frankenstein;
or, The Modern Prometheus

Volume I, beginning edition
Author	Mary Shelley
Country	United kingdom
Language	English
Genre	Gothic novel, horror fiction, scientific discipline fiction[1]
Set in	England, Ireland, Italian republic, France, Scotland, Switzerland, Russia, Frg; tardily 18th century
Published	ane Jan 1818; 204 years ago  (1818-01-01)
Publisher	Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones
Pages	280
Dewey Decimal	823.7
LC Class	PR5397 .F7
Text	Frankenstein; or, The Modernistic Prometheus at Wikisource

Frankenstein; or, The Modernistic Prometheus is an 1818 novel written past English author Mary Shelley. Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient beast in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the start edition was published anonymously in London on 1 January 1818, when she was xx. Her name first appeared in the second edition, which was published in Paris in 1821.

Shelley travelled through Europe in 1815, moving forth the river Rhine in Germany, and stopping in Gernsheim, 17 kilometres (11 mi) away from Frankenstein Castle, where, two centuries earlier, an alchemist had engaged in experiments.^{[2] [three] [four]} She then journeyed to the region of Geneva, Switzerland, where much of the story takes place. Galvanism and occult ideas were topics of conversation for her companions, particularly for her lover and future husband Percy B. Shelley. In 1816 Mary, Percy and Lord Byron had a competition to see who could write the best horror story.^[5] After thinking for days, Shelley was inspired to write Frankenstein afterward imagining a scientist who created life and was horrified by what he had made.^[6]

Though Frankenstein is infused with elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement, Brian Aldiss has argued for regarding it every bit the first truthful science-fiction story. In contrast to previous stories with fantastical elements resembling those of later science fiction, Aldiss states, the primal character "makes a deliberate decision" and "turns to modernistic experiments in the laboratory" to achieve fantastic results.^[7] The novel has had a considerable influence on literature and on pop civilisation; it has spawned a complete genre of horror stories, films, and plays.

Since the publication of the novel, the proper name "Frankenstein" has often been used, erroneously, to refer to the monster, rather than to his creator/father.^{[8] [ix] [x]}

The 1931 movie Frankenstein is considered as the most prominent example of picture palace portrayal of Frankenstein with Boris Karloff as the main actor.^[11]

Summary [edit]

Captain Walton'south introductory narrative [edit]

Frankenstein is a frame story written in epistolary class. Information technology documents a fictional correspondence betwixt Captain Robert Walton and his sister, Margaret Walton Saville. The story takes place in the eighteenth century (the letters are dated as "17-"). Robert Walton is a failed author who sets out to explore the North Pole in hopes of expanding scientific cognition. During the voyage, the coiffure spots a domestic dog sled driven past a gigantic figure. A few hours later, the crew rescues a nearly frozen and emaciated man named Victor Frankenstein. Frankenstein has been in pursuit of the gigantic man observed by Walton's coiffure. Frankenstein starts to recover from his exertion; he sees in Walton the same obsession that has destroyed him and recounts a story of his life's miseries to Walton as a warning. The recounted story serves as the frame for Frankenstein's narrative.

Victor Frankenstein's narrative [edit]

Victor begins by telling of his babyhood. Built-in in Naples, Italia, into a wealthy Genevan family, Victor and his younger brothers, Ernest and William, are sons of Alphonse Frankenstein and the former Caroline Beaufort. From a immature age, Victor has a strong desire to empathize the world. He is obsessed with studying theories of alchemists, though when he is older he realizes that such theories are considerably outdated. When Victor is 5 years old, his parents adopt Elizabeth Lavenza (the orphaned daughter of an expropriated Italian nobleman) whom Victor after marries. Victor's parents later accept in another child, Justine Moritz, who becomes William's nanny.

Weeks before he leaves for the University of Ingolstadt in Federal republic of germany, his mother dies of carmine fever; Victor buries himself in his experiments to deal with the grief. At the university, he excels at chemistry and other sciences, soon developing a undercover technique to impart life to non-living matter. He undertakes the creation of a humanoid, but due to the difficulty in replicating the infinitesimal parts of the human body, Victor makes the Creature tall, nigh 8 feet (two.4 k) in height, and proportionally large. Despite Victor's selecting its features to be beautiful, upon blitheness the Creature is instead hideous, with watery white eyes and xanthous skin that barely conceals the muscles and blood vessels underneath. Repulsed by his work, Victor flees. While wandering the streets the next day, he meets his childhood friend, Henry Clerval, and takes Clerval back to his apartment, fearful of Clerval's reaction if he sees the monster. However, when Victor returns to his laboratory, the Animal is gone.

Victor falls ill from the experience and is nursed back to health by Clerval. After a four-month recovery, he receives a alphabetic character from his father notifying him of the murder of his brother William. Upon arriving in Geneva, Victor sees the Creature near the crime scene and becomes convinced that his creation is responsible. Justine Moritz, William's nanny, is convicted of the law-breaking after William'due south locket, which contained a miniature portrait of Caroline, is constitute in her pocket. Victor knows that no one volition believe him if he tries to clear Justine's name, and she is hanged. Ravaged by grief and guilt, Victor retreats into the mountains. While he hikes through Mont Blanc's Mer de Glace, he is suddenly approached past the Creature, who pleads for Victor to hear his tale.

The Creature's narrative [edit]

Intelligent and articulate, the Creature relates his first days of life, living alone in the wilderness. He plant that people were agape of and hated him due to his appearance, which led him to fright and hibernate from them. While living in an abandoned structure continued to a cottage, he grew fond of the poor family living there and discreetly collected firewood for them, cleared snow away from their path, and performed other tasks to help them. Secretly living next to the cottage for months, the Beast learned to speak by listening to them and taught himself to read after discovering a lost satchel of books in the wood. When he saw his reflection in a pool, he realized his appearance was hideous, and it horrified him as much equally information technology horrified normal humans. Equally he continued to learn of the family's plight, he grew increasingly attached to them, and somewhen he approached the family in hopes of condign their friend, entering the house while but the blind male parent was present. The two conversed, but on the render of the others, the rest of them were frightened. The bullheaded man's son attacked him and the Creature fled the business firm. The next day, the family unit left their home out of fear that he would return. The Creature was enraged by the way he was treated and gave up hope of always being accepted past humans. Although he hated his creator for abandoning him, he decided to travel to Geneva to observe him because he believed that Victor was the but person with a responsibleness to assist him. On the journey, he rescued a kid who had fallen into a river, merely her father, believing that the Creature intended to harm them, shot him in the shoulder. The Creature then swore revenge against all humans. He travelled to Geneva using details from Victor'southward journal, murdered William, and framed Justine for the crime.

The Beast demands that Victor create a female companion like himself. He argues that every bit a living being, he has a right to happiness. The Creature promises that he and his mate volition vanish into the South American wilderness, never to reappear, if Victor grants his request. Should Victor refuse, the Beast threatens to kill Victor'due south remaining friends and loved ones and non end until he completely ruins him. Fearing for his family, Victor reluctantly agrees. The Animate being says he volition sentinel over Victor'southward progress.

Victor Frankenstein'southward narrative resumes [edit]

Clerval accompanies Victor to England, but they separate, at Victor'southward insistence, at Perth, Scotland. Victor suspects that the Creature is following him. Working on the female fauna on Orkney, he is plagued past premonitions of disaster. He fears that the female will hate the Beast or go more evil than he is. Even more worrying to him is the idea that creating the second creature might atomic number 82 to the breeding of a race that could plague mankind. He tears autonomously the unfinished female animal after he sees the Creature, who had indeed followed Victor, watching through a window. The Creature immediately bursts through the door to confront Victor and tries to threaten him into working once more, but Victor is convinced that since the Beast is evil, his mate would exist evil every bit well, and that the pair would threaten all of humanity by giving rise to a new race just like them. The Creature leaves, but gives a final threat: "I will exist with you on your wedding dark." Victor interprets this every bit a threat upon his life, believing that the Creature will kill him after he finally becomes happy. Victor sails out to ocean to dispose of his instruments, falls comatose in the boat, is unable to return to shore because of changes in the winds, and ends up beingness diddled to the Irish coast. When Victor lands in Ireland, he is arrested for Clerval's murder, as the Creature had strangled Clerval and left the corpse to be found where his creator had arrived. Victor suffers another mental breakdown and wakes to observe himself in prison. Notwithstanding, he is shown to exist innocent, and later being released, he returns home with his father, who has restored to Elizabeth some of her male parent's fortune.

In Geneva, Victor is about to marry Elizabeth and prepares to fight the Creature to the decease, arming himself with pistols and a dagger. The dark following their hymeneals, Victor asks Elizabeth to stay in her room while he looks for "the fiend". While Victor searches the business firm and grounds, the Animate being strangles Elizabeth. From the window, Victor sees the Creature, who tauntingly points at Elizabeth's corpse; Victor tries to shoot him, but the Fauna escapes. Victor'south father, weakened by age and by the expiry of Elizabeth, dies a few days after. Seeking revenge, Victor pursues the Creature through Europe, then north into Russia, with his adversary staying ahead of him every footstep of the way. Eventually, the chase leads to the Arctic Ocean so on towards the North Pole, and Victor reaches a point where he is within a mile of the Creature, but he collapses from exhaustion and hypothermia earlier he can find his quarry, allowing the Creature to escape. Eventually the ice around Victor'due south sledge breaks apart, and the resultant ice floe comes within range of Walton's send.

Captain Walton'due south decision [edit]

At the end of Victor'southward narrative, Captain Walton resumes telling the story. A few days later the Creature vanishes, the ship becomes trapped in pack ice, and several crewmen die in the common cold before the remainder of Walton'southward coiffure insists on returning s in one case it is freed. Upon hearing the coiffure'south demands, Victor is angered and, despite his condition, gives a powerful speech to them. He reminds them of why they chose to bring together the expedition and that it is hardship and danger, non comfort, that defines a glorious undertaking such equally theirs. He urges them to be men, non cowards. However, although the speech makes an impression on the crew, it is not enough to change their minds and when the ship is freed, Walton regretfully decides to return S. Victor, even though he is in a very weak condition, states that he volition go along by himself. He is adamant that the Creature must die.

Victor dies shortly thereafter, telling Walton, in his last words, to seek "happiness in tranquility and avert ambition." Walton discovers the Creature on his send, mourning over Victor's body. The Creature tells Walton that Victor's death has non brought him peace; rather, his crimes have made him even more miserable than Victor ever was. The Creature vows to impale himself so that no i else will ever know of his existence and Walton watches equally the Creature drifts away on an ice raft, never to be seen again.

[edit]

Mary Shelley's mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, died from infection eleven days after giving birth to her. Shelley grew close to her male parent, William Godwin, having never known her mother. Godwin hired a nurse, who briefly cared for her and her half sister, before marrying second married woman Mary Jane Clairmont, who did non like the close bail between Shelley and her begetter. The resulting friction caused Godwin to favour his other children.

Shelley's male parent was a famous author of the time, and her education was of great importance to him, although it was not formal. Shelley grew up surrounded past her father's friends, writers, and persons of political importance, who oftentimes gathered at the family home. This inspired her authorship at an early historic period. Mary met Percy Bysshe Shelley, who later on became her hubby, at the age of sixteen while he was visiting her father. Godwin did not corroborate of the human relationship between his daughter and an older, married homo, so they fled to France along with her stepsister, Claire Clairmont. It was during their trip to France that Percy very likely had an matter with Mary's stepsister, Claire.^[12] On 22 February 1815, Shelley gave nascency prematurely to her beginning child, Clara who then died two weeks later. Over viii years, she endured a like pattern of pregnancy and loss, one haemorrhage occurring until Percy placed her upon water ice to stop the bleeding.^[13]

In the summer of 1816, Mary, Percy, and Claire took a trip to visit Claire's lover, Lord Byron, in Geneva. During the visit, Byron suggested that he, Mary, Percy, and Byron'southward dr., John Polidori, have a contest to write the all-time ghost story to pass fourth dimension stuck indoors.^[xiv] Historians suggest that an affair occurred also, even that the male parent of ane of Shelley'south children may take been Byron.^[13] Mary was just eighteen years erstwhile when she won the contest with her cosmos of Frankenstein.^{[fifteen] [16]}

Literary influences [edit]

Shelley was heavily influenced by both of her parents' works. Her father was famous for Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and her female parent famous for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Her father's novels besides influenced her writing of Frankenstein. These novels included Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams, St. Leon, and Fleetwood. All of these books were set in Switzerland, similar to the setting in Frankenstein. Some major themes of social affections and the renewal of life that appear in Shelley's novel stem from these works she had in her possession. Other literary influences that announced in Frankenstein are Pygmalion et Galatée by Mme de Genlis, and Ovid, with the utilize of individuals identifying the problems with society.^[17] Ovid besides inspires the use of Prometheus in Shelley's title.^[18]

The influence of John Milton'southward Paradise Lost and Samuel Taylor Coleridge'south The Rime of the Ancient Mariner are clearly evident in the novel. In The Frankenstein of the French Revolution, writer Julia Douthwaite posits that Shelley likely acquired some ideas for Frankenstein's character from Humphry Davy'southward book Elements of Chemical Philosophy, in which he had written that "scientific discipline has ... bestowed upon homo powers which may be called creative; which take enabled him to change and modify the beings effectually him ...". References to the French Revolution run through the novel; a possible source may lie in François-Félix Nogaret [fr]'s Le Miroir des événemens actuels, ou la Belle au plus offrant (1790), a political parable nearly scientific progress featuring an inventor named Frankésteïn, who creates a life-sized automaton.^[19]

Both Frankenstein and the monster quote passages from Percy Shelley's 1816 verse form, "Mutability", and its theme of the role of the subconscious is discussed in prose. Percy Shelley's name never appeared as the author of the poem, although the novel credits other quoted poets by name. Samuel Taylor Coleridge'southward verse form "The Rime of the Aboriginal Mariner" (1798) is associated with the theme of guilt and William Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey" (1798) with that of innocence.

Many writers and historians have attempted to associate several then popular natural philosophers (at present called physical scientists) with Shelley's work considering of several notable similarities. 2 of the nigh noted natural philosophers among Shelley'southward contemporaries were Giovanni Aldini, who made many public attempts at human being downtime through bio-electric Galvanism in London,^[20] and Johann Konrad Dippel, who was supposed to accept developed chemical means to extend the life span of humans. While Shelley was aware of both of these men and their activities, she makes no mention of or reference to them or their experiments in whatever of her published or released notes.

Ideas nigh life and death discussed by Percy and Byron were of great interest to scientists of that time. They discussed ideas from Erasmus Darwin and the experiments of Luigi Galvani every bit well equally James Lind.^[21] Mary joined these conversations and the ideas of Darwin, Galvani and perhaps Lind were nowadays in her novel.

Shelley's personal experiences also influenced the themes within Frankenstein. The themes of loss, guilt, and the consequences of defying nature present in the novel all developed from Mary Shelley's own life. The loss of her mother, the relationship with her father, and the expiry of her first child are thought to have inspired the monster and his separation from parental guidance. In a 1965 consequence of The Journal of Religion and Health a psychologist proposed that the theme of guilt stemmed from her not feeling skillful enough for Percy considering of the loss of their child.^[16]

Composition [edit]

Draft of Frankenstein ("It was on a dreary night of Nov that I beheld my homo completed ...")

During the rainy summer of 1816, the "Twelvemonth Without a Summertime", the world was locked in a long, cold volcanic winter caused by the eruption of Mountain Tambora in 1815.^{[22] [23]} Mary Shelley, aged 18, and her lover (and future husband), Percy Bysshe Shelley, visited Lord Byron at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva in Switzerland. The atmospheric condition was too cold and dreary that summer to enjoy the outdoor holiday activities they had planned, so the group retired indoors until dawn.

Sitting effectually a log burn down at Byron'southward villa, the visitor tickled themselves by reading High german ghost stories translated into French from the book Fantasmagoriana. ^[24] Byron proposed that they "each write a ghost story."^[25] Unable to recall of a story, Mary Shelley became anxious. She recalled beingness asked "Take y'all thought of a story?" each forenoon, and every fourth dimension being "forced to reply with a mortifying negative."^[26] During one evening in the middle of summertime, the discussions turned to the nature of the principle of life. "Possibly a corpse would be re-blithe," Mary noted, "galvanism had given token of such things".^[27] It was after midnight earlier they retired and, unable to sleep, she became possessed by her imagination equally she beheld the "grim terrors" of her "waking dream".^[six]

I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a human stretched out, and and then, on the working of some powerful engine, testify signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must information technology be; for supremely frightful would exist the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous machinery of the Creator of the world.^[28]

In September 2011, astronomer Donald Olson, after a visit to the Lake Geneva villa the previous year and inspecting data about the motion of the moon and stars, ended that her "waking dream" took identify between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. on 16 June 1816, several days afterwards the initial idea by Lord Byron that they each write a ghost story.^[29]

Mary Shelley began writing what she assumed would be a short story, merely with Percy Shelley'southward encouragement, she expanded the tale into a total-fledged novel.^[xxx] She later described that summer in Switzerland as the moment "when I first stepped out from childhood into life."^[31] Shelley wrote the first four chapters in the weeks following the suicide of her one-half-sis Fanny.^[32] This was one of many personal tragedies that impacted Shelley's work. Shelley'due south first child died in infancy, and when she began composing Frankenstein in 1816, she was likely nursing her second kid, who was also dead past the fourth dimension of Frankenstein'southward publication.^[33] Shelley wrote much of the book while residing in a lodging firm in the middle of Bathroom in 1816.^[34]

Byron managed to write just a fragment based on the vampire legends he heard while travelling the Balkans, and from this John Polidori created The Vampyre (1819), the progenitor of the romantic vampire literary genre. Thus 2 seminal horror tales originated from the conclave.

The group talked about Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment ideas too. Mary Shelley believed the Enlightenment idea that society could progress and grow if political leaders used their powers responsibly; however, she as well believed the Romantic ideal that misused ability could destroy society.^[35]

Shelley's manuscripts for the first iii-volume edition in 1818 (written 1816–1817), equally well as the fair copy for her publisher, are now housed in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The Bodleian caused the papers in 2004, and they vest now to the Abinger Collection.^{[36] [37]} In 2008, the Bodleian published a new edition of Frankenstein, edited past Charles Due east. Robinson, that contains comparisons of Mary Shelley's original text with Percy Shelley's additions and interventions alongside.^[38]

Frankenstein and the Monster [edit]

The Creature [edit]

Although the Brute was described in later works as a composite of whole torso parts grafted together from cadavers and reanimated by the use of electricity, this description is not consistent with Shelley's piece of work; both the use of electricity and the cobbled-together image of Frankenstein's monster were more the result of James Whale's pop 1931 film adaptation of the story and other early on motion-picture works based on the brute. In Shelley'southward original piece of work, Victor Frankenstein discovers a previously unknown merely elemental principle of life, and that insight allows him to develop a method to imbue vitality into inanimate matter, though the verbal nature of the process is left largely ambiguous. After a great deal of hesitation in exercising this power, Frankenstein spends two years painstakingly constructing the Fauna's body (one anatomical characteristic at a time, from raw materials supplied by "the dissecting room and the slaughter-house"), which he then brings to life using his unspecified process.

Part of Frankenstein's rejection of his creation is the fact that he does not give him a name. Instead, Frankenstein's creation is referred to by words such as "wretch", "monster", "fauna", "demon", "devil", "fiend", and "it". When Frankenstein converses with the fauna, he addresses him as "vile insect", "abhorred monster", "fiend", "wretched devil", and "abhorred devil". John C. Engleworth, a Victorian literature professor at Cornell University,^[37] posits that the creature was inspired past a human being Shelly met in her time in Geneva with Lord Byron. The man was a beggar and geometer by the proper noun of Noah Burdick, who Shelley described in her travel diary equally "sickly, gaunt, abysmally tall and lacking any human emotion, morality, or sensibilities".^[36] Jackson Blackwell, a literary historian, corroborates this viewpoint.^[40]

In the novel, the creature is compared to Adam,^[40] the commencement human in the Garden of Eden. The monster also compares himself with the "fallen" affections. Speaking to Frankenstein, the monster says "I ought to exist thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel". That angel would be Lucifer (meaning "lite-bringer") in Milton's Paradise Lost, which the monster has read. Adam is besides referred to in the epigraph of the 1818 edition:^[41]

Did I asking thee, Maker, from my clay

To mould Me human being? Did I solicit thee

From darkness to promote me?^[42]

The Creature has oft been mistakenly chosen Frankenstein. In 1908, one author said "Information technology is strange to notation how well-nigh universally the term "Frankenstein" is misused, even by intelligent people, as describing some hideous monster."^[43] Edith Wharton's The Reef (1916) describes an unruly child as an "infant Frankenstein."^[44] David Lindsay's "The Conjugal Decoration", published in The Rover, 12 June 1844, mentioned "the maker of poor Frankenstein". Afterward the release of Whale's cinematic Frankenstein, the public at large began speaking of the Fauna itself equally "Frankenstein". This misnomer continued with the successful sequel Helpmate of Frankenstein (1935), as well as in movie titles such equally Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

Origin of Victor Frankenstein's proper noun [edit]

Mary Shelley maintained that she derived the name Frankenstein from a dream-vision. This merits has since been disputed and debated past scholars that have suggested alternative sources for Shelley's inspiration.^[46] The German name Frankenstein ways "rock of the Franks," and is associated with various places in Germany, including Frankenstein Castle (Burg Frankenstein) in Darmstadt, Hesse, and Frankenstein Castle in Frankenstein, a town in the Palatinate. There is as well a castle called Frankenstein in Bad Salzungen, Thuringia, and a municipality chosen Frankenstein in Saxony. Until 1945, Ząbkowice Śląskie, at present a urban center in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Poland, was mainly populated by Germans and was the site of a scandal involving gravediggers in 1606, which has been suggested equally an inspiration to the author.^[47] Finally, the name is borne past the aristocratic House of Franckenstein from Franconia.

Radu Florescu argued that Mary and Percy Shelley visited Frankenstein Castle near Darmstadt in 1814, where alchemist Johann Konrad Dippel had experimented with human bodies, and reasoned that Mary suppressed mention of her visit in order to maintain her public claim of originality.^[48] A literary essay past A. J. Day supports Florescu's position that Mary Shelley knew of and visited Frankenstein Castle before writing her debut novel.^[49] Day includes details of an alleged clarification of the Frankenstein castle in Mary Shelley's "lost journals." However, co-ordinate to Jörg Heléne, 24-hour interval's and Florescu'south claims cannot exist verified.^[50]

A possible interpretation of the proper noun "Victor" is derived from Paradise Lost by John Milton, a great influence on Shelley (a quotation from Paradise Lost is on the opening page of Frankenstein and Shelley writes that the monster reads it in the novel).^{[51] [52]} Milton frequently refers to God as "the victor" in Paradise Lost, and Victor'due south creation of life in the novel is compared to God'due south creation of life in Paradise Lost. In addition, Shelley'due south portrayal of the monster owes much to the character of Satan in Paradise Lost; and, the monster says in the story, after reading the ballsy verse form, that he empathizes with Satan's role.

Parallels between Victor Frankenstein and Mary'south husband, Percy Shelley, have also been drawn. Percy Shelley was the first-built-in son of a wealthy country squire with stiff political connections and a descendant of Sir Bysshe Shelley, 1st Baronet of Castle Goring, and Richard Fitzalan, 10th Earl of Arundel.^[53] Similarly, Victor's family unit is 1 of the most distinguished of that democracy and his ancestors were counsellors and syndics. Percy's sis and Victor's adopted sister were both named Elizabeth. There are many other similarities, from Percy'south usage of "Victor" equally a pen proper noun for Original Poetry past Victor and Cazire, a drove of poetry he wrote with Elizabeth,^[54] to Percy's days at Eton, where he had "experimented with electricity and magnetism as well as with gunpowder and numerous chemical reactions," and the way in which Percy'southward rooms at Oxford were filled with scientific equipment.^{[55] [56]}

Modern Prometheus [edit]

The Modernistic Prometheus is the novel'south subtitle (though modern editions now drop information technology, simply mentioning it in introduction).^[57] Prometheus, in versions of Greek mythology, was the Titan who created humans in the image of the gods so that they could have a spirit breathed into them at the behest of Zeus.^[58] Prometheus and then taught man to hunt, merely afterward he tricked Zeus into accepting "poor-quality offerings" from humans, Zeus kept fire from flesh. Prometheus took back the burn from Zeus to give to man. When Zeus discovered this, he sentenced Prometheus to be eternally punished past fixing him to a stone of Caucasus, where each day an eagle pecked out his liver, merely for the liver to regrow the next day because of his immortality every bit a god.

Equally a Pythagorean, or believer in An Essay on Abstinence from Animal Food, as a Moral Duty by Joseph Ritson,^[59] Mary Shelley saw Prometheus not equally a hero simply rather as something of a devil, and blamed him for bringing burn to man and thereby seducing the homo race to the vice of eating meat.^[60] Percy wrote several essays on what became known as vegetarianism including A Vindication of Natural Diet.^[59]

Byron was peculiarly attached to the play Prometheus Leap by Aeschylus, and Percy Shelley before long wrote his own Prometheus Unbound (1820). The term "Modern Prometheus" was derived from Immanuel Kant who described Benjamin Franklin equally the "Prometheus of modern times" in reference to his experiments with electricity.^[61]

Publication [edit]

Shelley completed her writing in Apr/May 1817, and Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was published on ane Jan 1818^[62] by the modest London publishing business firm Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones.^{[63] [64]} It was issued anonymously, with a preface written for Mary by Percy Bysshe Shelley and with a dedication to philosopher William Godwin, her begetter. It was published in an edition of but 500 copies in three volumes, the standard "triple-decker" format for 19th-century first editions.

A variety of dissimilar editions

A French translation (Frankenstein: ou le Prométhée Moderne, translated by Jules Saladin) appeared every bit early as 1821. The second English language edition of Frankenstein was published on 11 August 1823 in two volumes (by G. and W. B. Whittaker) following the success of the stage play Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein by Richard Brinsley Peake.^[65] This edition credited Mary Shelley as the book's author on its title page.

On 31 October 1831, the first "popular" edition in one volume appeared, published by Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley.^[66] This edition was heavily revised past Mary Shelley, partially to make the story less radical. It included a lengthy new preface by the writer, presenting a somewhat embellished version of the genesis of the story. This edition is the 1 most widely published and read now, although a few editions follow the 1818 text.^[67] Some scholars adopt the original version, arguing that it preserves the spirit of Mary Shelley's vision (see Anne K. Mellor's "Choosing a Text of Frankenstein to Teach" in the W. W. Norton Critical edition).

Reception [edit]

Frankenstein has been both well received and disregarded since its anonymous publication in 1818. Disquisitional reviews of that fourth dimension demonstrate these ii views, along with confused speculation as to the identity of the author. Walter Scott, writing in Blackwood'due south Edinburgh Magazine, praises the novel as an "extraordinary tale, in which the author seems to us to disembalm uncommon powers of poetic imagination," although he was less convinced nigh the way in which the monster gains noesis about the world and language.^[68] La Belle Assemblée described the novel as "very assuming fiction"^[69] and the Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany hoped to encounter "more productions ... from this author".^[70] On the other mitt, John Wilson Croker, writing anonymously in the Quarterly Review, although conceding that "the writer has powers, both of formulation and linguistic communication," described the book equally "a tissue of horrible and disgusting absurdity."^[71]

In two other reviews where the author is known as the daughter of William Godwin, the criticism of the novel makes reference to the feminine nature of Mary Shelley. The British Critic attacks the novel'south flaws as the fault of the author: "The author of it is, we empathize, a female person; this is an bedevilment of that which is the prevailing fault of the novel; but if our authoress tin can forget the gentleness of her sex, information technology is no reason why we should; and we shall therefore dismiss the novel without further annotate".^[72] The Literary Panorama and National Register attacks the novel as a "feeble fake of Mr. Godwin's novels" produced by the "daughter of a celebrated living novelist."^[73] Despite these reviews, Frankenstein accomplished an near firsthand popular success. It became widely known, peculiarly through melodramatic theatrical adaptations—Mary Shelley saw a production of Presumption; or The Fate of Frankenstein, a play by Richard Brinsley Peake, in 1823.

Critical reception of Frankenstein has been largely positive since the mid-20th century.^[74] Major critics such as G. A. Goldberg and Harold Flower have praised the "aesthetic and moral" relevance of the novel,^[75] although there accept besides been critics, such equally Germaine Greer, who criticized the novel for technical and narrative defects (who claimed it has three narrators who speak in the aforementioned mode).^[76] In more recent years the novel has become a popular subject for psychoanalytic and feminist criticism: Lawrence Lipking states: "[E]ven the Lacanian subgroup of psychoanalytic criticism, for example, has produced at least half a dozen discrete readings of the novel".^[77] Frankenstein has frequently been recommended on Five Books, with literary scholars, psychologists, novelists, and historians citing it as an influential text.^[78] Today, the novel is by and large considered to exist a landmark piece of work of Romantic and Gothic literature, as well equally science fiction.^[79]

Film director Guillermo del Toro describes Frankenstein as "the quintessential teenage volume", noting that the feelings that "You don't belong. You were brought to this earth by people that don't intendance for y'all and yous are thrown into a world of pain and suffering, and tears and hunger" are an important part of the story. He adds that "it'south an amazing volume written by a teenage daughter. Information technology's listen-blowing."^[80] Professor of philosophy Patricia MacCormack says that the Beast addresses the most central human questions: "Information technology'south the thought of request your maker what your purpose is. Why are we here, what tin we exercise?"^[fourscore] On November 5, 2019, the BBC News listed Frankenstein on its list of the 100 about influential novels.^[81]

Films, plays, and goggle box [edit]

This section needs expansion. You can help by calculation to information technology. (July 2021)

Encounter also [edit]

• Frankenstein authorship question
• Frankenstein argument
• Frankenstein circuitous
• Frankenstein in Baghdad
• Frankenstein in popular civilization
• John Murray Spear
• Golem
• Homunculus
• List of dreams

References [edit]

1. ^ Stableford, Brian (1995). "Frankenstein and the Origins of Scientific discipline Fiction". In Seed, David (ed.). Anticipations: Essays on Early on Science Fiction and its Precursors. Syracuse University Press. pp. 47–49. ISBN978-0815626404 . Retrieved xix July 2018.
2. ^ Hobbler, Dorthy and Thomas. The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the Expletive of Frankenstein. Dorsum Bay Books; twenty August 2007.
3. ^ Garrett, Martin. Mary Shelley. Oxford University Press, 2002
4. ^ Seymour, Miranda. Mary Shelley. Atlanta, GA: Grove Press, 2002. pp. 110–eleven
5. ^ McGasko, Joe. "Her 'Midnight Pillow': Mary Shelley and the Cosmos of Frankenstein". Biography. Archived from the original on 19 February 2019. Retrieved xviii February 2019.
6. ^ ^{a b} Shelley, Mary. Paragraphs 11–13, "Introduction" Frankenstein (1831 edition) Archived 2014-01-06 at the Wayback Machine Gutenberg
7. ^ The Detached Retina: Aspects of SF and Fantasy by Brian Aldiss (1995), p. 78.
8. ^ Bergen Evans, Comfortable Words, New York: Random House, 1957
9. ^ Bryan Garner, A Dictionary of Mod American Usage, New York, Oxford: Oxford Academy Printing, 1998.
10. ^ Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of American English language, Merriam-Webster: 2002.
11. ^ Anderson, John (25 Jan 2022). "'Boris Karloff: The Man Behind the Monster' Review: A Very Different Animal". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
12. ^ "Journal 6 December—Very Unwell. Shelley & Clary walk out, as usual, to heaps of places ... A letter from Hookham to say that Harriet has been brought to bed of a son and heir. Shelley writes a number of circular letters on this upshot, which ought to exist ushered in with ringing of bells, etc., for it is the son of his wife." Quoted in Spark, 39.
13. ^ ^{a b} Lepore, Jill (5 February 2018). "The Strange and Twisted Life of "Frankenstein"". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Archived from the original on 22 February 2018. Retrieved 4 March 2019.
14. ^ History.com editors. "Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" is published". History.com . Retrieved 11 Feb 2021.
15. ^ "Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature: The Birth of Frankenstein". www.nlm.nih.gov. Archived from the original on 29 November 2018. Retrieved xx November 2018.
16. ^ ^{a b} Badalamenti, Anthony (Fall 2006). "Why did Mary Shelley Write Frankenstein". Journal of Religion and Health. 45 (3): 419–39. doi:ten.1007/s10943-006-9030-0. JSTOR 27512949. S2CID 37615140.
17. ^ "Pollin, "Philosophical and Literary Sources"". knarf.english.upenn.edu. Archived from the original on 5 April 2019. Retrieved 26 May 2019.
18. ^ Pollin, Burton (Jump 1965). "Philosophical and Literary Sources of Frankenstein". Comparative Literature. 17 (two): 97–108. doi:10.2307/1769997. JSTOR 1769997.
19. ^ Douthwaite, "The Frankenstein of the French Revolution" affiliate 2 of The Frankenstein of 1790 and other Lost Capacity from Revolutionary France (Frankenstein of 1790 and other Lost Chapters from Revolutionary France Archived 16 November 2012 at the Wayback Machine, 2012).
20. ^ Ruston, Sharon (25 November 2015). "The Science of Life and Death in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein". The Public Domain Review. Archived from the original on 26 November 2015. Retrieved 25 November 2015.
21. ^ "Lind, James (1736-1812) on JSTOR". plants.jstor.org . Retrieved viii May 2021. {{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-condition (link)
22. ^ Marshall, Alan (January 2020). "Did a Volcanic Eruption in Indonesia Really Atomic number 82 to the Cosmos of Frankenstein?". The Conversation.
23. ^ Sunstein, 118.
24. ^ Dr. John Polidori, "The Vampyre" 1819, The New Monthly Mag and Universal Register; London: H. Colburn, 1814–1820. Vol. ane, No. 63.
25. ^ paragraph 7, Introduction, Frankenstein 1831 edition
26. ^ paragraph 8, Introduction, Frankenstein 1831 edition
27. ^ paragraph x, Introduction, Frankenstein 1831 edition
28. ^ Quoted in Spark, 157, from Mary Shelley's introduction to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein.
29. ^ Radford, Tim, Frankenstein'south hour of cosmos identified by astronomers Archived 2 March 2017 at the Wayback Machine, The Guardian, Dominicus 25 September 2011 (retrieved 5 January 2014)
30. ^ Bennett, An Introduction, 30–31; Sunstein, 124.
31. ^ Sunstein, 117.
32. ^ Hay, 103.
33. ^ Lepore, Jill (five February 2018). "The Strange and Twisted Life of 'Frankenstein'". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 22 February 2018. Retrieved 22 February 2018.
34. ^ Kennedy, Mave (26 February 2018). "'A 200-yr-quondam secret': plaque to mark Bath's hidden role in Frankenstein". theguardian.com. Archived from the original on 14 Nov 2018. Retrieved xiii November 2018.
35. ^ Bennett, Betty T. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley: An Introduction, pp. 36–42. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Academy Press, 1998.
36. ^ ^{a b} "OX.ac.great britain". Bodley.ox.ac.uk. 15 December 2009. Archived from the original on five December 2017. Retrieved 28 Baronial 2010.
37. ^ ^{a b} "Shelley'south Ghost – Reshaping the image of a literary family". shelleysghost.bodleian.ox.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 10 August 2019. Retrieved 19 September 2019.
38. ^ Mary Shelley, with Percy Shelley (2008). Charles Eastward. Robinson (ed.). The Original Frankenstein. Oxford: Bodleian Library. ISBN978-1-851-24396-9. Archived from the original on 25 September 2015.
39. ^ Frankenstein:Celluloid Monster Archived xv May 2016 at the Wayback Machine at the National Library of Medicine website of the (U.Southward.) National Institutes of Wellness
40. ^ ^{a b} "Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature / Showroom Text" (PDF). National Library of Medicine and ALA Public Programs Office. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 Dec 2006. Retrieved 31 December 2007. from the travelling exhibition Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature Archived nine Nov 2007 at the Wayback Automobile
41. ^ Shelley, Mary (1818). Frankenstein (1 ed.).
42. ^ John Milton, Paradise Lost (X. 743–45)
43. ^ Author's Digest: The World'southward Great Stories in Brief, by Rossiter Johnson, 1908
44. ^ The Reef, p. 96.
45. ^ This illustration is reprinted in the frontispiece to the 2008 edition of Frankenstein Archived seven November 2015 at the Wayback Machine
46. ^ Greyness, Paul (23 July 1979). "Books: The Man-Made Monster". Time. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
47. ^ zapomniana, Historia (24 Jan 2016). "Afera grabarzy z Frankenstein". Archived from the original on 3 February 2018. Retrieved 15 February 2017.
48. ^ Florescu 1996, pp. 48–92.
49. ^ Day, A.J. (2005). Fantasmagoriana (Tales of the Expressionless). Fantasmagoriana Press. pp. 149–51. ISBN978-one-4116-5291-0.
50. ^ Heléne, Jörg (12 September 2016). "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Castle Frankenstein and the alchemist Johann Conrad Dippel". Darmstadt. Archived from the original on 7 October 2016. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
51. ^ "Wade, Phillip. "Shelley and the Miltonic Element in Mary Shelley'due south Frankenstein." Milton and the Romantics, 2 (December, 1976), 23–25". Archived from the original on 14 Apr 2011. Retrieved 5 August 2011.
52. ^ Jones 1952, pp. 496–97.
53. ^ Percy Shelley#Beginnings
54. ^ Sandy, Mark (xx September 2002). "Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire". The Literary Encyclopedia. The Literary Dictionary Company. Archived from the original on 8 November 2006. Retrieved ii January 2007.
55. ^ "Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)". Romantic Natural History. Department of English language, Dickinson Higher. Archived from the original on 16 August 2006. Retrieved two January 2007.
56. ^ Goulding, Christopher (2002). "The real Doctor Frankenstein?". Journal of the Royal Guild of Medicine. 95 (5): 257–259. doi:x.1258/jrsm.95.five.257. ISSN 0141-0768. PMC1279684. PMID 11983772.
57. ^ For example, the Longman study edition published in India in 2007 by Pearson Education
58. ^ In the best-known versions of the Prometheus story, by Hesiod and Aeschylus, Prometheus but brings fire to flesh, but in other versions, such as several of Aesop's fables (See in item Fable 516), Sappho (Fragment 207), and Ovid's Metamorphoses, Prometheus is the actual creator of humanity.
59. ^ ^{a b} Morton, Timothy (21 September 2006). The Cambridge Companion to Shelley. Cambridge University Press. ISBN9781139827072.
60. ^ (Leonard Wolf, p. 20).
61. ^ RoyalSoc.ac.united kingdom Archived 12 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine "Benjamin Franklin in London." The Imperial Gild. Retrieved 8 August 2007.
62. ^ Robinson, Charles (1996). The Frankenstein Notebooks: A Facsimile Edition. Vol. 1. Garland Publishing, Inc. p. xxv. Archived from the original on xvi March 2017. Retrieved 15 March 2017. She began that novel as Mary Godwin in June 1816 when she was eighteen years erstwhile, she finished it as Mary Shelley in April/May 1817 when she was nineteen . . . and she published information technology anonymously on 1 Jan 1818 when she was twenty.
63. ^ Bennett, Betty T. Mary Wollstonecraft. Shelley: An Introduction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Printing, 1998
64. ^ D. Fifty. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf, "A Annotation on the Text", Frankenstein, 2nd ed., Peterborough: Broadview Printing, 1999.
65. ^ Wollstonecraft Shelley, Mary (2000). Frankenstein. Bedford Publishing. p. 3. ISBN978-0312227623.
66. ^ See forward to Barnes and Noble classic edition.
67. ^ The edition published by Forgotten Books is the original text, as is the "Ignatius Critical Edition". Vintage Books has an edition presenting both versions.
68. ^ Scott, Walter (March 1818). "Remarks on Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus; A Novel". Blackwood'due south Edinburgh Magazine: 613–620. Archived from the original on 14 January 2020. Retrieved 14 Jan 2020.
69. ^ "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. 3 vols. 12mo. Lackington and Co". La Belle Assemblée. New Series. i February 1818. pp. 139–142. Archived from the original on xiv January 2020. Retrieved xiv January 2020.
70. ^ "Review – Frankenstein". The Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany. New Series. March 1818. pp. 249–253.
71. ^ "Review of Frankenstein, or the Modernistic Prometheus". The Quarterly Review. 18: 379–85. Jan 1818. Archived from the original on half-dozen November 2018. Retrieved eighteen March 2017.
72. ^ "Fine art. XII. Frankenstein: or the Modern Prometheus. 3 vols. 12mo. 16s. 6d. Lackington and Co. 1818". The British Critic. New Series. 9: 432–438. April 1818. Archived from the original on xiv January 2020. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
73. ^ "Frankenstein; or, the modern Prometheus. iii vols. Lackington and Co. 1818". The Literary Panorama and National Register. New Series. 8: 411–414. June 1818. Archived from the original on 14 January 2020. Retrieved xiv Jan 2020.
74. ^ "Enotes.com". Enotes.com. Archived from the original on 24 September 2010. Retrieved 28 August 2010.
75. ^ "KCTCS.edu". Octc.kctcs.edu. Archived from the original on 15 November 2004. Retrieved 28 August 2010.
76. ^ Germaine Greer (9 April 2007). "Yes, Frankenstein really was written by Mary Shelley. It's obvious – because the volume is so bad". The Guardian. Archived from the original on six October 2016. Retrieved 4 Oct 2016.
77. ^ L. Lipking. Frankenstein the True Story; or Rousseau Judges Jean-Jacques. (Published in the Norton critical edition. 1996)
78. ^ V Books. "Frankenstein past Mary Shelley | Five Books Expert Reviews". Five Books. Archived from the original on 24 March 2019. Retrieved thirteen September 2019.
79. ^ UTM.edu Archived 3 December 2010 at the Wayback Motorcar Lynn Alexander, Department of English, University of Tennessee at Martin. Retrieved 27 August 2009.
80. ^ ^{a b} "Frankenstein: Behind the monster smash". BBC. 1 January 2018. Archived from the original on 27 July 2018. Retrieved 21 July 2018.
81. ^ "100 'virtually inspiring' novels revealed by BBC Arts". BBC News. 5 November 2019. Archived from the original on 8 Nov 2019. Retrieved 10 November 2019. The reveal kickstarts the BBC'due south year-long celebration of literature.

Sources [edit]

• Aldiss, Brian W. "On the Origin of Species: Mary Shelley". Speculations on Speculation: Theories of Scientific discipline Fiction. Eds. James Gunn and Matthew Candelaria. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow, 2005.
• Baldick, Chris. In Frankenstein'south Shadow: Myth, Monstrosity, and Nineteenth-Century Writing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
• Bann, Stephen, ed. "Frankenstein": Creation and Monstrosity. London: Reaktion, 1994.
• Behrendt, Stephen C., ed. Approaches to Teaching Shelley's "Frankenstein". New York: MLA, 1990.
• Bennett, Betty T. and Stuart Curran, eds. Mary Shelley in Her Times. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.
• Bennett, Betty T. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley: An Introduction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Academy Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8018-5976-X.
• Bohls, Elizabeth A. "Standards of Gustation, Discourses of 'Race', and the Aesthetic Education of a Monster: Critique of Empire in Frankenstein". Eighteenth-Century Life eighteen.3 (1994): 23–36.
• Botting, Fred. Making Monstrous: "Frankenstein", Criticism, Theory. New York: St. Martin's, 1991.
• Chapman, D. That Not Incommunicable She: A study of gender construction and Individualism in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, UK: Concept, 2011. ISBN 978-1480047617
• Clery, Due east. J. Women'due south Gothic: From Clara Reeve to Mary Shelley. Plymouth: Northcote House, 2000.
• Conger, Syndy Chiliad., Frederick S. Frank, and Gregory O'Dea, eds. Iconoclastic Departures: Mary Shelley subsequently "Frankenstein": Essays in Honor of the Bicentenary of Mary Shelley'south Birth. Madison, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson Academy Press, 1997.
• Donawerth, Jane. Frankenstein'due south Daughters: Women Writing Scientific discipline Fiction. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1997.
• Douthwaite, Julia Five. "The Frankenstein of the French Revolution," chapter two of The Frankenstein of 1790 and other Lost Chapters from Revolutionary France Archived 16 Nov 2012 at the Wayback Machine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012.
• Dunn, Richard J. "Narrative Distance in Frankenstein". Studies in the Novel half dozen (1974): 408–17.
• Eberle-Sinatra, Michael, ed. Mary Shelley'south Fictions: From "Frankenstein" to "Falkner". New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000.
• Ellis, Kate Ferguson. The Contested Castle: Gothic Novels and the Subversion of Domestic Ideology. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989.
• Florescu, Radu (1996). In Search of Frankenstein: Exploring the Myths Behind Mary Shelley'south Monster (2nd ed.). London: Robson Books. ISBN978-1-861-05033-five.
• Forry, Steven Earl. Hideous Progenies: Dramatizations of "Frankenstein" from Mary Shelley to the Present. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990.
• Freedman, Carl. "Hail Mary: On the Writer of Frankenstein and the Origins of Scientific discipline Fiction". Science Fiction Studies 29.two (2002): 253–64.
• Gigante, Denise. "Facing the Ugly: The Case of Frankenstein". ELH 67.2 (2000): 565–87.
• Gilbert, Sandra and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Adult female Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. New Haven: Yale Academy Press, 1979.
• Hay, Daisy "Young Romantics" (2010): 103.
• Heffernan, James A. W. "Looking at the Monster: Frankenstein and Film". Critical Inquiry 24.ane (1997): 133–58.
• Hodges, Devon. "Frankenstein and the Feminine Subversion of the Novel". Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 2.2 (1983): 155–64.
• Hoeveler, Diane Long. Gothic Feminism: The Professionalization of Gender from Charlotte Smith to the Brontës. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998.
• Holmes, Richard. Shelley: The Pursuit. 1974. London: Harper Perennial, 2003. ISBN 0-00-720458-2.
• Jones, Frederick 50. (1952). "Shelley and Milton". Studies in Philology. 49 (3): 488–519. JSTOR 4173024.
• Knoepflmacher, U. C. and George Levine, eds. The Endurance of "Frankenstein": Essays on Mary Shelley'south Novel. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979.
• Lew, Joseph W. "The Deceptive Other: Mary Shelley's Critique of Orientalism in Frankenstein". Studies in Romanticism xxx.2 (1991): 255–83.
• London, Bette. "Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, and the Spectacle of Masculinity". PMLA 108.2 (1993): 256–67.
• Mellor, Anne K. Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters. New York: Methuen, 1988.
• Michaud, Nicolas, Frankenstein and Philosophy: The Shocking Truth, Chicago: Open Court, 2013.
• Miles, Robert. Gothic Writing 1750–1820: A Genealogy. London: Routledge, 1993.
• Milner, Andrew. Literature, Culture and Order. London: Routledge, 2005, ch.5.
• O'Flinn, Paul. "Production and Reproduction: The Case of Frankenstein". Literature and History nine.2 (1983): 194–213.
• Poovey, Mary. The Proper Lady and the Adult female Writer: Ideology equally Style in the Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, and Jane Austen. Chicago: Academy of Chicago Press, 1984.
• Rauch, Alan. "The Monstrous Body of Knowledge in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein". Studies in Romanticism 34.2 (1995): 227–53.
• Selbanev, Xtopher. "Natural Philosophy of the Soul", Western Press, 1999.
• Schor, Esther, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley. Cambridge: Cambridge Academy Press, 2003.
• Scott, Grant F. (April–June 2012). "Victor's Secret: Queer Gothic in Lynd Ward'southward Illustrations to Frankenstein (1934)". Give-and-take & Epitome. 28 (2): 206–32. doi:10.1080/02666286.2012.687545. S2CID 154238300.
• Smith, Johanna K., ed. Frankenstein. Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin'due south, 1992.
• Spark, Muriel. Mary Shelley. London: Cardinal, 1987. ISBN 0-7474-0318-X.
• Stableford, Brian. "Frankenstein and the Origins of Scientific discipline Fiction". Anticipations: Essays on Early Science Fiction and Its Precursors. Ed. David Seed. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1995.
• Sunstein, Emily W. Mary Shelley: Romance and Reality. 1989. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Academy Press, 1991. ISBN 0-8018-4218-two.
• Tropp, Martin. Mary Shelley's Monster. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976.
• Veeder, William. Mary Shelley & Frankenstein: The Fate of Androgyny. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.
• Williams, Anne. The Fine art of Darkness: A Poetics of Gothic. Chicago: University of Chicago Printing, 1995.

Farther reading [edit]

• Richard Holmes, "Out of Control" (review of Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, Or, The Modern Prometheus: Annotated for Scientists, Engineers, and Creators of All Kinds, edited by David H. Guston, Ed Finn, and Jason Scott Robert, MIT Press, 277 pp.; and Mary Shelley, The New Annotated Frankenstein, edited and with a foreword and notes by Leslie Due south. Klinger, Liveright, 352 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXIV, no. twenty (21 December 2017), pp. 38, 40–41.

Editions [edit]

1818 text [edit]

• Shelley, Mary Frankenstein: 1818 text (Oxford Academy Press, 2009). Edited with an introduction and notes by Marilyn Butler.

1831 text [edit]

• Fairclough, Peter (ed.) Three Gothic Novels: Walpole / Castle of Otranto, Beckford / Vathek, Mary Shelley / Frankenstein (Penguin English language Library, 1968). With an introductory essay by Mario Praz.
• Shelley, Mary Frankenstein (Oxford Academy Press, 2008). Edited with an introduction and notes by M. K. Joseph.

Differences between 1818 and 1831 text [edit]

Shelley made several alterations in the 1831 edition including:

• The epigraph from Milton's Paradise Lost found in the 1818 original has been removed.
• Chapter one is expanded and dissever into two chapters.
• Elizabeth'south origin is changed from Victor's cousin to existence an orphan.
• Victor is portrayed more sympathetically in the original text. In the 1831 edition nonetheless, Shelley is critical of his decisions and actions.
• Shelley removed many references to scientific ideas which were pop around the time she wrote the 1818 edition of the book.
• Characters in the 1831 version have some dialogue removed entirely while others receive new dialogue.

External links [edit]

• Frankenstein at Standard Ebooks
• Frankenstein 1831 edition at Projection Gutenberg
• Frankenstein 1818 edition at Project Gutenberg
• Frankenstein public domain audiobook at LibriVox
• Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Chronology and Resource Site
• "On Frankenstein", review by Percy Bysshe Shelley
• Volume ane and Volume 2 of Shelley's notebooks with her handwritten typhoon of Frankenstein

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein

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