Frankenstein (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
Page 1
Table of Contents
FROM THE PAGES OF FRANKENSTEIN
Title Page
Copyright Page
MARY SHELLEY
THE WORLD OF MARY SHELLEY AND FRANKENSTEIN
Introduction
Praise
Dedication
AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION
PREFACE
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
ENDNOTES
INSPIRED BY FRANKENSTEIN
COMMENTS & QUESTIONS
FOR FURTHER READING
FROM THE PAGES OF FRANKENSTEIN
“We are unfashioned creatures, but half made up.” (page 24)
Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by such slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity or ruin. (page 37)
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)
“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)
Published by Barnes & Noble Books
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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
Copyright @ 2003 by Karen Karbiener.
Note on Mary Shelley, The World of Mary Shelley and Frankenstein,
Inspired by Frankenstein, and Comments & Questions
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Frankenstein
ISBN-13: 978-1-59308-115-7
ISBN-10: 1-59308-115-4
eISBN : 978-1-411-43222-2
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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 twitchi
ng 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.
INTRODUCTION
Cursed Tellers, Compelling Tales—The Endurance of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Alone—alone—all—all—alone
Upon the wide, wide sea—
And God will not take pity on
My soul in agony!
WHO IS MEANT TO give voice to these lines, which comprise a late entry in the journal of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley (Journals, vol.2 p. 573)? Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” had been one of her favorite poems since the poet had recited it in her father’s study, so Shelley may simply have meant to reanimate the seafaring protagonist. These lines also speak for many of her own literary creations, including the main characters in her most popular novel, Frankenstein. Captain Robert Walton knew the poem well, attributing “passionate enthusiasm, for the dangerous mysteries of ocean, to that production of the most imaginative of modern poets” (p. 18). Coleridge’s mariner experiences the utter desolation of being the last living soul on board his ship, and comes to sense that he is living under a ban that deprives him of human company; Shelley’s mariner, too, mourns his isolated state, and desperately longs for a sympathetic friend. Victor Frankenstein also decries the pain of living his nightmare existence, as his loved ones die off one by one. But it is the monster who most deeply feels the utter misery of an enforced solitary existence. Declaring itself “godless” and “wretched” in the final scene, th
e creature is the living embodiment of these four bleak lines as it is carried out of human earshot and off the pages of Frankenstein by icy waves.
Even in her journal, Mary Shelley used fiction and foils to explore her innermost feelings. By her mid-twenties, the lonely misery of Coleridge’s mariner was all too familiar to her. Nothing in her life seemed to endure. Her mother had died as a result of giving birth to her; her half-sister, Fanny, had committed suicide about a month after Mary’s nineteenth birthday (and two months before Percy Shelley’s first wife killed herself) ; four of her five conceptions ended tragically, the last a near-fatal miscarriage; her husband, Percy, was drowned in 1822, six years after their marriage, and their friend Byron died two years later. Later attempts at romance (such as her interest in Aubrey Beauclerk) and even friendship (with Jane Williams, for example) tended to be short-lived, or simply ended disastrously. She outlived every major Romantic writer and attended the funerals of almost every one of her loved ones. As early as age twenty-six, she wrote, “The last man! Yes I may well describe that solitary being’s feelings, feeling myself as the last relic of a beloved race, my companions extinct before me” (Journals, vol. 2, p. 542).
Her urgent desire to “enrol myself on the page of fame” (p. 6) was quashed upon the death of Percy, her great love and literary mentor. His loss made her surviving son all the more precious to her, and as their financial problems persisted Mary turned to writing for money rather than literary reputation. Many of Frankenstein’s readers are surprised to discover that Shelley wrote steadily through her life, producing six novels after her first, Frankenstein, two verse plays, two travel works, several biographies, translations, children’s stories, and edited works. In addition, she composed numerous essays, poems, and reviews and more than two dozen short stories. Most of the major writings suffered from unfavorable comparisons to Frankenstein; several of them received negative reviews or were cited as morally corrupt (The Last Man was even banned in some European countries). Most of her work has been long out of print, and until about forty years ago, Mary was not given serious consideration as a writer. She seems to have anticipated the potential uselessness of her literary labors relatively early in her career: “What folly is it in me to write trash nobody will read,” she complained in her journal in 1825. “All my many pages—future waste paper—surely I am a fool” (Journals, vol. 2, p. 489).