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Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is an 1818 Gothic novel written by English author Mary Shelley. Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a Sapience creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment that involved putting it together with different body parts. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18 and staying in Baden-Baden, and the first edition was published anonymously in London on 1 January 1818, when she was 20. Her name first appeared in the second edition, which was published in Paris in 1821.
Shelley travelled through Europe in 1815, moving along the river Rhine in Germany, and stopping in Gernsheim, away from Frankenstein Castle, where, about a century earlier, Johann Konrad Dippel, an alchemist, had engaged in experiments.Hobbler, Dorthy and Thomas. The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein. Back Bay Books; 20 August 2007.Garrett, Martin. Mary Shelley. Oxford University Press, 2002Seymour, Miranda. Mary Shelley. Atlanta, GA: Grove Press, 2002. pp. 110–11 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 Bysshe Shelley.
In 1816, Mary, Percy, John Polidori, and Lord Byron had a competition to see who would write the best horror story. After thinking for days, Shelley was inspired to write Frankenstein after imagining a scientist who created life and was horrified by what he had made.
Frankenstein is one of the best-known works of English literature. Infused with elements of the Gothic fiction and the Romanticism movement, it has had a considerable influence on literature and on popular culture, spawning a complete genre of horror stories, films, and plays. Since the publication of the novel, the name Frankenstein has often been used to refer to the monster.Bergen Evans, Comfortable Words, New York: Random House, 1957Bryan Garner, A Dictionary of Modern American Usage, New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of American English, Merriam-Webster: 2002.
The newly conscious creature runs away, discovers fire, and learns to avoid humans, who find him frightening. He finds a hovel attached to a small house, which lets him observe a family while remaining unseen. As the family teaches their language to a foreigner, the creature also learns to speak and write. He also finds a collection of books, including Paradise Lost, and learns to read. He reads some papers that had been in the clothes he had taken from Ingolstadt, through which he learns the truth of his origin and the identity of his creator. When he finally reveals himself to the family, they are horrified by his appearance and chase him away. The creature then saves a young girl from drowning, only to be shot by her father, who perceives his rescue as an attack.
Angry at humanity, the creature travels to Geneva so he can confront Victor; upon arrival, he encounter’s Victor's younger brother, William. Realizing that William belongs to the same family, the creature kills him, then frames the family's servant Justine for his death. Victor suspects his creature was responsible, but does not intervene while Justine is tried and executed. Later, while hiking on Mer de Glace, Victor encounters the creature again. The creature relays his story and asks Victor to create a female companion, which he believes will be his only chance at happiness. Victor agrees.
Victor and his friend Henry Clerval leave the European mainland for Great Britain, where Victor establishes a laboratory in Orkney. While working on the female creature, Victor worries about his creations giving birth, and decides to destroy the incomplete female instead. In retaliation, the original creature murders Henry. Victor suffers a mental breakdown, then returns home. Back in Geneva, Victor marries his childhood friend Elizabeth Lavenza, only for the creature to murder her on the wedding night. Days later, Victor's father Alphonse dies of grief. With no remaining family (besides his other brother Ernest), Victor vows revenge and pursues the creature, eventually following him to the Arctic.
Chasing the creature across Arctic ice, Victor nearly dies from exhaustion and hypothermia. He is rescued by Captain Robert Walton, who is leading an expedition to the North Pole. Victor recounts his story to Walton and encourages the crew to continue their expedition; instead, they decide to abandon their journey and turn back. Victor vows to continue chasing the creature, but in his weakened state, he dies aboard the ship. As the ship leaves the Arctic, the creature comes onboard. He mourns Victor's death, tells Walton he plans to burn himself on a pyre, and then departs.
Shelley's father 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 by her father's friends, writers, and persons of political importance, who often gathered at the family home. This inspired her authorship at an early age. Mary, at the age of sixteen, met Percy Bysshe Shelley (who later became her husband) while he was visiting her father. Godwin did not approve of the relationship between his daughter and an older, married man, so they fled to France along with her stepsister, Claire Clairmont. On 22 February 1815, Shelley gave birth prematurely to her first child, Clara, who died two weeks later.
In the summer of 1816, Mary, Percy, and Claire took a trip to visit Claire's lover, Lord Byron, in Geneva. Poor weather conditions, more akin to winter, forced Byron and the visitors to stay indoors. To help pass time, Byron suggested that he, Mary, Percy, and Byron's physician, John Polidori, have a competition to write the best ghost story to pass time stuck indoors. Mary was just eighteen years old when she won the contest with her creation of Frankenstein.
The influence of John Milton's Paradise Lost and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner are evident in the novel. In The Frankenstein of the French Revolution, author Julia Douthwaite posits that Shelley probably acquired some ideas for Frankenstein's character from Humphry Davy's book Elements of Chemical Philosophy, in which he had written that,
science has ... bestowed upon man powers which may be called creative; which have enabled him to change and modify the beings around him ...References to the French Revolution run through the novel; a likely source is 's Le Miroir des événemens actuels, ou la Belle au plus offrant (1790), a political parable about scientific progress featuring an inventor named Frankésteïn, who creates a life-sized automaton.
Both Frankenstein and the monster quote passages from Percy Shelley's 1816 poem, "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's poem "The Rime of the Ancient 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 (now called physical scientists) with Shelley's work because of several notable similarities. Two of the most noted natural philosophers among Shelley's contemporaries were Giovanni Aldini, who made many public attempts at human reanimation through bio-electric Galvanism in London, and Johann Konrad Dippel, who was supposed to have 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 any of her published or released notes.
Ideas about 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 as well as James Lind. Mary joined these conversations and the ideas of Darwin, Galvani and perhaps Lind were present 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 death of her first child are thought to have inspired the monster and his separation from parental guidance. In a 1965 issue of The Journal of Religion and Health a psychologist proposed that the theme of guilt stemmed from her not feeling good enough for Percy because of the loss of their child.
Sitting around a log fire at Byron's villa, the company amused themselves by reading German ghost stories translated into French from the book Fantasmagoriana.Dr. John Polidori, "The Vampyre" 1819, The New Monthly Magazine and Universal Register; London: H. Colburn, 1814–1820. Vol. 1, No. 63. Byron proposed that they "each write a ghost story."paragraph 7, Introduction, Frankenstein 1831 edition Unable to think of a story, Mary Shelley became anxious. She recalled being asked "Have you thought of a story?" each morning, and every time being "forced to reply with a mortifying negative."paragraph 8, Introduction, Frankenstein 1831 edition During one evening in the middle of summer, the discussions turned to the nature of the principle of life. "Perhaps a corpse would be re-animated," Mary noted, "galvanism had given token of such things".paragraph 10, Introduction, Frankenstein 1831 edition It was after midnight before they retired and, unable to sleep, she became possessed by her imagination as she beheld the "grim terrors" of her "waking dream".
In September 2011, astronomer Donald Olson, after a visit to the Lake Geneva villa in the previous year and inspecting data about the motion of the moon and stars, concluded that her "waking dream" took place between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. on 16 June 1816, several days after the initial idea by Lord Byron that they each write a ghost story.
Mary Shelley began writing what she assumed would be a short story, but with Percy Shelley's encouragement, she expanded the tale into a fully-fledged novel. She later described that summer in Switzerland as the moment "when I first stepped out from childhood into life." Shelley wrote the first four chapters in the weeks following the suicide of her half-sister Fanny.Hay, 103. This was one of many personal tragedies that impacted Shelley's work. Shelley's first child died in infancy, and when she began composing Frankenstein in 1816, she was probably nursing her second child, who was also dead by the time of Frankensteins publication. Shelley wrote much of the book while residing in a lodging house in the centre of Bath in 1816.
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 two seminal horror tales originated from the conclave.
The group talked about Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment ideas as well. Mary Shelley believed the Enlightenment idea that society could progress and grow if political leaders used their powers responsibly; however, she also believed the Romantic ideal that misused power could destroy society.
Shelley's manuscripts for the first three-volume edition in 1818 (written 1816–1817), as well as the fair copy for her publisher, are now housed in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The Bodleian acquired the papers in 2004, and they belong now to the Baron Abinger Collection. In 2008, the Bodleian published a new edition of Frankenstein, edited by Charles E. Robinson, that contains comparisons of Mary Shelley's original text with Percy Shelley's additions and interventions alongside.
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", "creature", "demon", "devil", "fiend", and "it". When Frankenstein converses with the creature, he addresses him as "vile insect", "abhorred monster", "fiend", "wretched devil", and "abhorred devil".
In the novel, the creature is compared to Adam, from the travelling exhibition Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature the first man in the Garden of Eden. The monster also compares himself with the "fallen" angel. Speaking to Frankenstein, the monster says "I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel". That angel would be Lucifer (meaning "light-bringer") in John Milton's Paradise Lost, which the monster has read. Adam is also referred to in the epigraph of the 1818 edition:
Some have posited the creature as a composite of Percy Shelley and Thomas Paine. If the creature's hatred for Victor and his desire to raise a child mirror Percy's filial rebelliousness and his longing to adopt children, his desire to do good and his persecution can be said to echo Paine's utopian visions and fate in England.Chiu, Frances A. "Reform, Revolution, and the relevance of Frankenstein in 2020" in Frankenstein Reanimated: Conversations with Artists in Dystopian Times, ed. by Marc Garrett and Yiannis Colakides. London: Torque, 2022, 33–44.
The Creature has often been mistakenly called Frankenstein. In 1908, one author said "It is strange to note how well-nigh universally the term 'Frankenstein' is misused, even by intelligent people, as describing some hideous monster." Edith Wharton's The Reef (1916) describes an unruly child as an "infant Frankenstein". The Reef, p. 96. David Lindsay's "The Bridal Ornament", published in The Rover, 12 June 1844, mentioned "the maker of poor Frankenstein". After the release of Whale's cinematic Frankenstein, the public at large began speaking of the Creature itself as "Frankenstein". This misnomer continued with the successful sequel Bride of Frankenstein (1935), as well as in film titles such as Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.
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 to maintain her public claim of originality.. A literary essay by A.J. Day supports Florescu's position that Mary Shelley knew of and visited Frankenstein Castle before writing her debut novel. Day includes details of an alleged description of the Frankenstein castle in Mary Shelley's "lost journals". However, according to Jörg Heléne, Day's and Florescu's claims cannot be verified.
A possible interpretation of the name "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).. Milton frequently refers to God as "the victor" in Paradise Lost, and Victor's creation of life in the novel is compared to God's creation of life in Paradise Lost. In addition, Shelley's portrayal of the monster owes much to the character of Satan in Paradise Lost; and, the monster says in the story, after reading the epic poem, that he empathizes with Satan's role.
Parallels between Victor Frankenstein and Mary's husband, Percy Shelley, have also been drawn. Percy Shelley was the first-born son of a wealthy country squire with strong political connections and a descendant of Sir Bysshe Shelley, 1st Baronet of Castle Goring, and Richard Fitzalan, 10th Earl of Arundel. Similarly, Victor's family is one of the most distinguished of that republic and his ancestors were counsellors and . Percy's sister and Victor's adopted sister were both named Elizabeth. There are many other similarities, from Percy's usage of "Victor" as a pen name for Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire, a collection of poetry he wrote with Elizabeth, 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's rooms at Oxford were filled with scientific equipment.
As a Pythagoreanism, or believer in An Essay on Abstinence from Animal Food, as a Moral Duty by Joseph Ritson, Mary Shelley saw Prometheus not as a hero but rather as something of a devil, and blamed him for bringing fire to humanity and thereby seducing the human race to the vice of eating meat.(Leonard Wolf, p. 20). Percy wrote several essays on what became known as vegetarianism including A Vindication of Natural Diet.
Byron was particularly attached to the play Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus, and Percy Shelley soon wrote his own Prometheus Unbound (1820). The term "Modern Prometheus" was derived from Immanuel Kant who described Benjamin Franklin as the "Prometheus of modern times" in reference to his experiments with electricity.
A French translation ( Frankenstein: ou le Prométhée Moderne, translated by Jules Saladin) appeared as early as 1821. The second English 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. 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.See forward to Barnes and Noble classic edition. This edition was heavily revised by Mary Shelley, partially to make the story less radical. It included a lengthy new preface by the author, presenting a somewhat embellished version of the genesis of the story. This edition is the one most widely published and read now, although a few editions follow the 1818 text.The edition published by Forgotten Books is the original text, as is the "Ignatius Critical Edition". Vintage Books has an edition presenting both versions. Some scholars such as Anne K. Mellor prefer the original version, arguing that it preserves the spirit of Mary Shelley's vision. Reprinted
The British Critic attacked the novel's flaws as the fault of the author:
The writer of it is, we understand, a female; this is an aggravation of that which is the prevailing fault of the novel; but if our authoress can forget the gentleness of her sex, it is no reason why we should; and we shall therefore dismiss the novel without further comment.
The Literary Panorama and National Register attacked the novel as a "feeble imitation of William Godwin's novels" produced by the "daughter of a celebrated living novelist."
Despite these reviews, Frankenstein achieved an almost immediate popular success. It became widely known, especially 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. Major critics such as M. A. Goldberg and Harold Bloom have praised the "aesthetic and moral" relevance of the novel, although there have also been critics, such as Germaine Greer, who criticized the novel for technical and narrative defects: for example, she claimed that its three narrators all speak in the same way. In more recent years the novel has become a popular subject for psychoanalytic and feminist criticism: Lawrence Lipking states: "Even the Jacques Lacan subgroup of psychoanalytic criticism, for instance, has produced at least half a dozen discrete readings of the novel".L. Lipking. Frankenstein the True Story; or Rousseau Judges Jean-Jacques. (Published in the Norton critical edition. 1996) Frankenstein has frequently been recommended on Five Books, with literary scholars, psychologists, novelists, and historians citing it as an influential text. Today, the novel is generally considered to be a landmark work as one of the greatest Romantic and Gothic novels, as well as one of the first science fiction novels.
Brian Aldiss has argued for regarding it as the first true science-fiction story. In contrast to previous stories with fantastical elements resembling those of later science fiction, Aldiss states, the central character "makes a deliberate decision" and "turns to modern experiments in the laboratory" to achieve fantastic results.Brian Wilson Aldiss (1995). 9780815626817, Syracuse, N.Y. : Syracuse University Press. . ISBN 9780815626817
Film director Guillermo del Toro describes Frankenstein as "the quintessential teenage book", noting that the feelings that "You don't belong. You were brought to this world by people that don't care for you and you are thrown into a world of pain and suffering, and tears and hunger" are an important part of the story. He adds that "it's an amazing book written by a teenage girl. It's mind-blowing." Professor of philosophy Patricia MacCormack says that the Creature addresses the most fundamental human questions: "It's the idea of asking your maker what your purpose is. Why are we here, what can we do?"
On 5 November 2019, BBC News included Frankenstein in its list of the 100 most influential novels. In 2018, Jersey Post released series of 8 stamps celebrating the 200th anniversary of Frankenstein. In 2021 it was one of six classic science fiction novels by British authors selected by Royal Mail to be featured on a series of UK postage stamps.
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Sources
Reception
Films, plays, and television
The 1931 film,"Frankenstein. 1931.1080p. Blu Ray. H 264. AAC RARBG." Internet Archive, 1931, archive.org/details/frankenstein.1931.1080p.bluray.h264.aacrarbg. with Boris Karloff playing the monster, is considered the most prominent portrayal of Frankenstein.
See also
Notes
Sources
(2025). 9780801877339, Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 9780801877339
Betty T. Bennett (1998). 080185976X, Johns Hopkins University Press. 080185976X
Further reading
Editions
1818 text
1831 text
Differences between 1818 and 1831 text
Shelley made several alterations in the 1831 edition including:
External links
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