by Mary Shelley
2. In Italy and parts of Switzerland, “syndic,” or “sindaco,” meant the mayor or head of administration of a commune or canton. In Geneva, the syndics were members of a council appointed to govern the republic. They were ousted by the Directory but resumed power in the nineteenth century.
3. This sentence has been substantially rewritten in the 1831 edition, where it reads as follows: “He passed his younger days perpetually occupied by the affairs of his country; a variety of circumstances had prevented his marrying early, nor was it until the decline of life that he became a husband and the father of a family.”
4. Probably originally “Beaumont”—that name has been corrected several places in the Draft.
5. Lucerne, a cantonal capital, had a population in 1797 of about 100,000, almost exclusively Catholics. Situated in the German-speaking region of Switzerland, it is highly scenic, framed by beautiful lakes and mountains, and was known in the early nineteenth century for the number and length of its bridges.
6. This sentence is substantially rewritten in the 1831 edition to read as follows: “He bitterly deplored the false pride which led his friend to a conduct so little worthy of the affection that united them. He lost no time in endeavouring to seek him out, with the hope of persuading him to begin the world again through his credit and assistance.”
7. The fourth longest river in Switzerland, it runs through Lucerne on its way to the Rhine and the North Sea.
8. Straw-plaiting consisted of drying straw and weaving it into strips, used in the manufacture of hats and baskets. It was an industry dominated by women and young children, because the work could be performed at home, and it was said that a woman could earn more from straw-plaiting than could a man working in the fields. See Thomas George Austin, The Straw Plaiting and Straw Hat and Bonnet Trade (Luton: Patrick O’Doherty, 1871).
9. The succeeding eight paragraphs have been substantially revised in the 1831 edition; they read as follows:
There was a considerable difference between the ages of my parents, but this circumstance seemed to unite them only closer in bonds of devoted affection. There was a sense of justice in my father’s upright mind which rendered it necessary that he should approve highly to love strongly. Perhaps during former years he had suffered from the late-discovered unworthiness of one beloved and so was disposed to set a greater value on tried worth. There was a show of gratitude and worship in his attachment to my mother, differing wholly from the doting fondness of age, for it was inspired by reverence for her virtues and a desire to be the means of, in some degree, recompensing her for the sorrows she had endured, but which gave inexpressible grace to his behaviour to her. Everything was made to yield to her wishes and her convenience. He strove to shelter her, as a fair exotic is sheltered by the gardener, from every rougher wind and to surround her with all that could tend to excite pleasurable emotion in her soft and benevolent mind. Her health, and even the tranquillity of her hitherto constant spirit, had been shaken by what she had gone through. During the two years that had elapsed previous to their marriage my father had gradually relinquished all his public functions; and immediately after their union they sought the pleasant climate of Italy, and the change of scene and interest attendant on a tour through that land of wonders, as a restorative for her weakened frame.
From Italy they visited Germany and France. I, their eldest child, was born at Naples, and as an infant accompanied them in their rambles. I remained for several years their only child. Much as they were attached to each other, they seemed to draw inexhaustible stores of affection from a very mine of love to bestow them upon me. My mother’s tender caresses and my father’s smile of benevolent pleasure while regarding me are my first recollections. I was their plaything and their idol, and something better—their child, the innocent and helpless creature bestowed on them by heaven, whom to bring up to good, and whose future lot it was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery, according as they fulfilled their duties towards me. With this deep consciousness of what they owed towards the being to which they had given life, added to the active spirit of tenderness that animated both, it may be imagined that while during every hour of my infant life I received a lesson of patience, of charity, and of self-control, I was so guided by a silken cord that all seemed but one train of enjoyment to me. For a long time I was their only care. My mother had much desired to have a daughter, but I continued their single offspring. When I was about five years old, while making an excursion beyond the frontiers of Italy, they passed a week on the shores of the Lake of Como. Their benevolent disposition often made them enter the cottages of the poor. This, to my mother, was more than a duty; it was a necessity, a passion—remembering what she had suffered, and how she had been relieved—for her to act in her turn the guardian angel to the afflicted. During one of their walks a poor cot [cottage] in the foldings of a vale attracted their notice as being singularly disconsolate, while the number of half-clothed children gathered about it spoke of penury in its worst shape. One day, when my father had gone by himself to Milan, my mother, accompanied by me, visited this abode. She found a peasant and his wife, hard working, bent down by care and labour, distributing a scanty meal to five hungry babes. Among these there was one which attracted my mother far above all the rest. She appeared of a different stock. The four others were dark-eyed, hardy little vagrants; this child was thin and very fair. Her hair was the brightest living gold, and despite the poverty of her clothing, seemed to set a crown of distinction on her head. Her brow was clear and ample, her blue eyes cloudless, and her lips and the moulding of her face so expressive of sensibility and sweetness that none could behold her without looking on her as of a distinct species, a being heaven-sent, and bearing a celestial stamp in all her features. The peasant woman, perceiving that my mother fixed eyes of wonder and admiration on this lovely girl, eagerly communicated her history. She was not her child, but the daughter of a Milanese nobleman. Her mother was a German and had died on giving her birth. The infant had been placed with these good people to nurse: they were better off then. They had not been long married, and their eldest child was but just born. The father of their charge was one of those Italians nursed in the memory of the antique glory of Italy—one among the schiavi ognor frementi [literally, “slaves forever enraged”—the rebellious intelligentsia who, in the 1820s, inhabited Milan, dissenting from Austrian rule—clearly, long after the events recounted here and an anachronism introduced by Mary Shelley], who exerted himself to obtain the liberty of his country. He became the victim of its weakness. Whether he had died or still lingered in the dungeons of Austria was not known. His property was confiscated; his child became an orphan and a beggar. She continued with her foster parents and bloomed in their rude abode, fairer than a garden rose among dark-leaved brambles. When my father returned from Milan, he found playing with me in the hall of our villa a child fairer than pictured cherub—a creature who seemed to shed radiance from her looks and whose form and motions were lighter than the chamois of the hills. The apparition was soon explained. With his permission my mother prevailed on her rustic guardians to yield their charge to her. They were fond of the sweet orphan. Her presence had seemed a blessing to them, but it would be unfair to her to keep her in poverty and want when Providence afforded her such powerful protection. They consulted their village priest, and the result was that Elizabeth Lavenza became the inmate of my parents’ house—my more than sister—the beautiful and adored companion of all my occupations and my pleasures.
Everyone loved Elizabeth. The passionate and almost reverential attachment with which all regarded her became, while I shared it, my pride and my delight. On the evening previous to her being brought to my home, my mother had said playfully, “I have a pretty present for my Victor—tomorrow he shall have it.” And when, on the morrow, she presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth as mine—mine to protect, love, and cherish. All p
raises bestowed on her I received as made to a possession of my own. We called each other familiarly by the name of cousin. No word, no expression could body forth the kind of relation in which she stood to me—my more than sister, since till death she was to be mine only.
Chapter 2
We were brought up together; there was not quite a year difference in our ages. I need not say that we were strangers to any species of disunion or dispute. Harmony was the soul of our companionship, and the diversity and contrast that subsisted in our characters drew us nearer together. Elizabeth was of a calmer and more concentrated disposition; but, with all my ardour, I was capable of a more intense application and was more deeply smitten with the thirst for knowledge. She busied herself with following the aerial creations of the poets; and in the majestic and wondrous scenes which surrounded our Swiss home—the sublime shapes of the mountains, the changes of the seasons, tempest and calm, the silence of winter, and the life and turbulence of our Alpine summers—she found ample scope for admiration and delight. While my companion contemplated with a serious and satisfied spirit the magnificent appearances of things, I delighted in investigating their causes. The world was to me a secret, which I desired to divine. Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can remember.
On the birth of a second son, my junior by seven years, my parents gave up entirely their wandering life and fixed themselves in their native country. We possessed a house in Geneva, and a campagne [country house] on Belrive [see note 46, below], the eastern shore of the lake, at the distance of rather more than a league from the city. We resided principally in the latter, and the lives of my parents were passed in considerable seclusion. It was my temper to avoid a crowd and to attach myself fervently to a few. I was indifferent, therefore, to my school-fellows in general; but I united myself in the bonds of the closest friendship to one among them. Henry Clerval was the son of a merchant of Geneva. He was a boy of singular talent and fancy. He loved enterprise, hardship, and even danger for its own sake. He was deeply read in books of chivalry and romance. He composed heroic songs and began to write many a tale of enchantment and knightly adventure. He tried to make us act plays and to enter into masquerades, in which the characters were drawn from the heroes of Roncesvalles, of the Round Table of King Arthur, and the chivalrous train who shed their blood to redeem the holy sepulchre from the hands of the infidels.
No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself. My parents were possessed by the very spirit of kindness and indulgence. We felt that they were not the tyrants to rule our lot according to their caprice, but the agents and creators of all the many delights which we enjoyed. When I mingled with other families I distinctly discerned how peculiarly fortunate my lot was, and gratitude assisted the development of filial love.
My temper was sometimes violent, and my passions vehement; but by some law in my temperature they were turned not towards childish pursuits but to an eager desire to learn, and not to learn all things indiscriminately. I confess that neither the structure of languages, nor the code of governments, nor the politics of various states possessed attractions for me. It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of things or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world.
Meanwhile Clerval occupied himself, so to speak, with the moral relations of things. The busy stage of life, the virtues of heroes, and the actions of men were his theme; and his hope and his dream was to become one among those whose names are recorded in story as the gallant and adventurous benefactors of our species. The saintly soul of Elizabeth shone like a shrine-dedicated lamp in our peaceful home. Her sympathy was ours; her smile, her soft voice, the sweet glance of her celestial eyes, were ever there to bless and animate us. She was the living spirit of love to soften and attract; I might have become sullen in my study, rough through the ardour of my nature, but that she was there to subdue me to a semblance of her own gentleness. And Clerval—could aught ill entrench on the noble spirit of Clerval? Yet he might not have been so perfectly humane, so thoughtful in his generosity, so full of kindness and tenderness amidst his passion for adventurous exploit, had she not unfolded to him the real loveliness of beneficence and made the doing good the end and aim of his soaring ambition.
Much is changed in this later version. Victor’s parents become more laudable, and the May–September relationship between them is excused. Other changes are noted below.
10. A typographical error for “his,” corrected in the Thomas Text and subsequent editions of the 1818 text.
11. Also, coincidentally, the name of Percy Shelley’s mother and favorite sister. There are several instances in the Draft where Mary Shelley changed the name Myrtella to Elizabeth, suggesting that the Ur-Text named the character Myrtella. Myrtle is a symbol of love, held sacred by the goddess Venus.
Barbara Johnson observes, in “My Monster/My Self”: “All the interesting, complex characters in the book are male … the females, on the other hand, are beautiful, gentle, selfless, boring nurturers and victims who never experience inner conflict or true desire.” Johnson’s criticism notwithstanding, Elizabeth is a fascinating character whose true strength is revealed in the context of the trial of her friend Justine. As will be seen, Elizabeth’s experiences parallel those of Mary Shelley, who endured a stepmother, a female peer introduced into her beloved father’s home, and who had a brother named William.
12. In the 1818 edition, we see that Elizabeth is the first cousin of Victor Frankenstein, the daughter of his father’s sister. In the 1831 edition, Elizabeth has become the only child of a Milanese nobleman, orphaned and raised by peasants, who is taken away by Victor’s parents from this loving family because it would be “unfair to her to keep her in poverty.” Elizabeth then becomes a “gift” to Victor from his parents. In both versions, Elizabeth actually kills both her own biological mother (as did Mary Shelley) and her stepmother Caroline; in the 1831 edition, she has two stepmothers, the first of whom abandons her (for noble motives) and the second of whom she kills. Is it any wonder that in the later version Victor has so little regard for his own “child”?
13. This sentence was substantially revised and expanded by Percy Shelley.
14. This and the preceding sentence were added by Percy Shelley.
15. This is the first of two places in the Draft where Mary Shelley has corrected the name Carignan to Clerval, suggesting that the name Carignan appeared in the Ur-Text. Clerval is also spelled “Clairval” in early versions, suggesting an identification with Charles Clairmont, the stepbrother of Mary Shelley.
16. Orlando, or Roland, was a lieutenant of Charlemagne, celebrated in the eleventh-century Chanson de Roland and later in the Italian Renaissance works Orlando Innamorato and Orlando Furioso. He had numerous adventures with his famous sword Durendal and horse Veillantif and became one of the chief figures of the literature of knight-errantry. Roland also became the subject of fairy tales, the most popular being a tale of his rescue of his sister from the King of Elfland. Robert Browning’s 1855 epic poem Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came was inspired by the fairy tale (and a line in King Lear), and Browning’s poem in turn formed the framework for Stephen King’s eight-volume Dark Tower series (1982–2012), with its central figure the gunslinger Roland Deschain. Roland is also echoed as Charles Rowland, one of the Dead Boy Detectives, in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman epic and his comic series The Children’s Crusade and Books of Magic.
17. Amadís, or Amadís de Gaula, was the son of King Perion of Gaul, and his numerous adventures were recounted in the first great Spanish work of knight-errantry, by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo, written in the sixteenth century. The books influenced the conquistadores, who grew up reading the adventures of Amadís, as well as su
bsequent Romantic writers. His story is immortalized in five eponymous operas, by Lully (1684), Destouches (1699), Handel (1715), Johann Christian Bach (1779), and Massenet (1922).
18. St. George, a Roman soldier who lived at the end of the third century CE, is best remembered by the tale “St. George and the Dragon,” a legend brought home by the Crusaders and later worked into his hagiography. The Golden Legend, or Lives of the Saints, compiled by Jacobus de Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa in 1275, and first published in 1470 (first English edition 1485), recounts the legend. In his journeys, George comes to the city of Silene, where a dragon has ravaged the countryside. The populace soon tires of appeasing the dragon, especially when their children become the sacrifices. Eventually even the king’s daughter is required to be offered to the dragon. George, passing by, learns of her plight and conquers the dragon with his sword and spear, whereupon, according to The Golden Legend, he entreats the maid: “Deliver to me your girdle, and bind it about the neck of the dragon and be not afeard.” When she has done so, “the dragon followed her as it had been a meek beast and debonair.” The couple leads the dragon into town, where George admonishes the townspeople to believe in God; he then slays the dragon. The king and fifteen thousand men were reportedly baptized following this great victory, and a church with a miraculous fountain was established. George went on to become the patron saint of England.
19. In Politi cal Justice, Mary Shelley’s father, William Godwin, wrote: “Refer them to reading, to conversation, to meditation; but teach them neither creeds nor catechisms, either moral or political. … Speak the language of truth and reason to your child, and be under no apprehension for the result. Show him that what you recommend is valuable and desirable, and fear not but he will desire it. Convince his understanding, and you enlist all his powers animal and intellectual in your service.”