Frankenstein (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein—more, far more, will I achieve: treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation. (page 42)

It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. (page 51)

I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, I embraced her; but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms. (page 51)

Did any one indeed exist, except I, the creator, who would believe, unless his senses convinced him, in the existence of the living monument of presumption and rash ignorance which I had let loose upon the world? (page 72)

“You accuse me of murder; and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature. Oh, praise the eternal justice of man!” (page 90)

“When I looked around, I saw and heard of none like me. Was I then a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled, and whom all men disowned?” (page 107)

“Slave, I before reasoned with you, but you have proved yourself unworthy of my condescension. Remember that I have power; you believe yourself miserable, but I can make you so wretched that the light of day will be hateful to you. You are my creator, but I am your master;—obey !” (page 149)

The fiend was not here: a sense of security, a feeling that a truce was established between the present hour and irresistible, disastrous future, imparted to me a kind of calm forgetfulness, of which the human mind is by its structure peculiarly susceptible. (page 163)

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Frankenstein
was first published anonymously in 1818.
This text follows Mary Shelley’s revised edition of 1831.

Published in 2003 by Barnes & Noble Classics with new Introduction,
Notes, Biography, Chronology, Inspired By, Comments & Questions,
and For Further Reading.

Introduction, Notes, and For Further Reading

Note on Mary Shelley, The World of Mary Shelley and
Frankenstein,
Inspired by
Frankenstein,
and Comments & Questions
Copyright © 2003 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

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Frankenstein
ISBN-13: 978-1-59308-115-7

ISBN-10: 1-59308-115-4

eISBN : 978-1-411-43222-2

LC Control Number 2004101433

Produced and published in conjunction with:
Fine Creative Media, Inc.
322 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10001

Michael J. Fine, President and Publisher

Printed in the United States of America
QM
791086

MARY SHELLEY

Though her life was fraught with personal tragedy, Mary Shelley was destined for literary greatness. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was born on August 30, 1797, to radically thinking parents: William Godwin, anarchist, philosopher, and author of the novel The
Adventures of Caleb Williams
(1794), and Mary Wollstonecraft, a well-known proto-feminist who wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Mary Wollstonecraft died from complications of childbirth eleven days after her daughter was born.

At age sixteen, Mary eloped to France with the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, for which Mary’s father temporarily disowned her. In 1816, Shelley’s first wife, Harriet, whom he had abandoned for Mary, drowned herself in the Serpentine River. Mary and Percy married days after Harriet’s body, pregnant with Shelley’s unborn child, was discovered. The Shelleys moved to the shores of Lake Geneva, and there formed a literary circle that included George Gordon, Lord Byron. The group regularly held all-night discourses on scientific and supernatural topics. After one such discussion, in which Byron suggested a friendly “ghost story” competition, Mary had a dream that became the inspiration for Frankenstein; or, The Modem Prometheus, her first novel. Published anonymously in 1818, Frankenstein was an instant success.

Of the four children Mary had with Percy Shelley, only one lived beyond the age of three: their son Percy Florence. In June 1821, Mary nearly died from the miscarriage of a fifth child. A month later, Shelley drowned in a boating accident in the Gulf of Spezia, at the age of twenty-nine.

Mary Shelley devoted the rest of her life to writing novels, editing Shelley’s poetry for posthumous publication, and traveling with her son. She died on February 1, 1851, and was buried at Bournemouth with her parents.

THE WORLD OF MARY SHELLEY AND FRANKENSTEIN

1765	Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, the first true Gothic novel, is published.
1789	The French Revolution erupts, signaling the end of the French monarchy, the rise of the middle class, and improvements in the social status of women; this intense and violent revolt has a pro found impact on the Romantic literary movement.
1791	Italian physician Luigi Galvani announces his discovery of “animal electricity,” which manifests in the twitching of nerves and mus cles when an electric current is applied.
1796	Mary Wollstonecraft, author of the proto-feminist essay A Vindi cation of the Rights of Woman and a member of an intellectually radical circle that includes William Blake, William Godwin, Thomas Hol croft, James Johnson, Thomas Paine, and William Wordsworth, begins an affair with Godwin.
1797	The two marry. Mary Wollstonecraft gives birth to Mary Woll stonecraft Godwin and dies from complications eleven days later.
1798	Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge publish The Lyrical Bal lads, a collaboration that helps shape the sensibilities of the Ro mantics. William Godwin publishes Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, an emotional biography of Mary Wollstonecraft. The book, which details Wollstonecraft’s suicide attempts and the couple’s sex life, causes much scandal. Before she begins writing Frankenstein, Mary Shelley reads the memoir sev eral times.
1801	Godwin marries Mary Jane Clairmont, whose son, Charles, and daughter, Jane, join the household; also living with them is Fanny Imlay, Mary Wollstonecraft’s daughter by Captain Gilbert Imlay, an American.
1812	The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, recently expelled from Oxford for refusing to admit to writing The Necessity of Atheism, initiates a cor respondence with William Godwin, whom he admires; Godwin, famous for his 1793 Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, is also admired by Coleridge, among others. Mary spends ten blissful months in
Dundee, Scotland; she falls in love with the Scottish landscape, which will feature prominently in Frankenstein.
1814	At age sixteen, Mary elopes with Percy Shelley, taking along her stepsister, Jane. Mary’s father refuses to speak to her for the next two years. Jane, who later changes her name to Claire, becomes a semipermanent fixture in Percy and Mary’s household. Percy continues to see his wife Harriet intermittently.
1815	Mary gives premature birth to an unnamed daughter who dies within days. Percy makes the acquaintance of the critic and essayist William Hazhtt and the poet John Keats.
1816	Mary gives birth to a son, William. The family relocates to Geneva, where they meet George Gordon, Lord Byron. In a friendly “ghost story” competition, Byron produces “A Fragment.” His literary friend and doctor John William Pohdori writes “The Vampyre: A Tale,” which is not published until 1819, when it is attributed to Byron; “The Vampyre” later greatly influences Bram Stoker’s Dra cula ( 1897 ) . At the encouragement of Percy and Byron, Mary Shel ley begins writing Frankenstein. Mary’s half-sister, Fanny, commits suicide. Harriet Shelley drowns herself and her unborn child, her third by Percy. Percy and Mary, who is also pregnant, marry at St. Mildred’s Church in London on December 30. William Godwin reconciles with his daughter.
1817	The Shelleys move to Great Marlow, on the Thames. Claire gives birth to Byron’s daughter, Allegra. Mary gives birth to a daughter, Clara. History of a Six Weeks’ Tour recounts the Shelleys’ travels through France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland in 1814 fol lowing their elopement. Mary completes Frankenstein.
1818	Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, published anonymously in three volumes, is an overwhelming success. Clara, Mary’s daughter, dies in Venice. Byron begins his epic poem Don Juan.
1819	Young William, whom Percy adoringly calls “Will-mouse,” dies of malaria. Mary gives birth to Percy Florence, her only child to survive infancy.
1820	Percy publishes Prometheus Unbound: A Lyrical Drama. Hans Christian Ørsted discovers the connection between electricity and magnet ism.
1821	John Keats dies, and Percy elegizes him in the long poem Adonais. Percy writes a critical essay, A Defence of Poetry, not published until
1840, that claims poets are the “unacknowledged legislators of the world.” Though she is surrounded by radicals, Mary Shelley’s worldview becomes increasingly conservative.
1822	Mary miscarries and nearly dies of hemorrhaging. Percy and his friend Edward Williams drown on July 8 when their boat, the Don Juan, sinks during a storm.
1823	Mary Shelley’s novel Valperga is published. Richard Brinsley’s play Presumption; or, The Fate of Frankenstein opens at the English Opera House, and Mary attends a performance. Frankenstein is reprinted in two volumes, this time bearing Mary Shelley’s name. Four more plays based on Frankenstein open this year, all to minimal success.
1824	Mary publishes Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Posthumous Poems. Percy’s fa ther, Sir Timothy Shelley, tells Mary he will withhold Percy Flor ence’s allowance until Mary stops publishing the late poet’s writing.
1826	The Last Man, one of Mary Shelley’s finest novels, chronicles the last surviving member of the human race, which has been all but wiped out by plague.
1828	Mary contracts smallpox. Over the next ten years, she contributes several short stories and poems to The Keepsake and other journals.
1830	Mary Shelley’s novel The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck is published.
1831	She revises Frankenstein for publication in Bentley’s Standard Novels. In this edition, she includes an introduction that reveals a mature and almost nostalgic attitude toward the novel and its inspiration.
1835	Mary Shelley’s semiautobiographical novel Lodore is published. She contributes biographical essays to Lardner’s Cabinet Cyclopaedia; over the next four years she writes about the lives of historical figures.
1836	William Godwin dies at the age of 80.
1837	Falkner, Mary Shelley’s final novel, makes little impression on a public smitten with the work of Charles Dickens, and she stops writing novels. Queen Victoria is crowned.
1839	Mary publishes Percy Shelley’s Poetical Works in four volumes. She becomes infirm and battles various illnesses for the rest of her life.
1844	Rambles in Germany and Italy, a book describing Mary’s travels with her son Percy Florence and his friends, is published.
1851	After several strokes, Mary Shelley dies on February 1, at age 53. The remains of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin are re
located to the churchyard at St. Peters, Bournemouth, and the three are buried there side by side.
1910	The first film adaptation of Frankenstein, produced by Thomas Edi son, is released.
1931	James Whale’s film adaptation of Frankenstein premieres, starring Boris Karloff as the monster, in what is perhaps the best known and most popular of the films made from Shelley’s novel.
1959	Mary Shelley’s Mathilde, a novel that deals with father-daughter incest, is published; it was begun in 1819 but was suppressed by William Godwin.
1997	A sheep called Dolly, the first successfully cloned mammal, is born.

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