Frankenstein- or The Modern Prometheus (Oxford World's Classics)

by Mary Shelley

  Mary Shelley wrote in the infancy of modern science, when its enormous possibilities were just beginning to be foreseen by imaginative writers like Byron and Shelley and by speculative scientists like Davy and Erasmus Darwin. At the age of nineteen, she achieved the quietly astonishing feat of looking beyond them and creating a lasting symbol of the perils of scientific Prometheanism. Her success is shown by the simple fact that her tale has acquired a kind of independent mythic life, like that of Quixote or Crusoe.

  Frankenstein has appeared in numerous editions and in translations which have recently included Japanese, Russian, Urdu, Arabic, and Malayalam. A few years after it was first published, it underwent its first highly successful translation to the stage.1 In an age which has learned to ‘mock the invisible world with its own shadows’, the tradition has been carried on in two series of films, in the first of which (from 1931 onwards) Boris Karloff, despite the fantastications of the story and its sequels, created a monster which had something of the pathos of the original. It seems to have earned for Frankenstein’s monster a lasting place in folk memory as well as providing a proverbial image of scientific aims pursued in reckless disregard of human consequences. It is ironic but entirely appropriate that, in the process, the nameless monster seems to have usurped the name of his creator.

  1 For the composition of the novel, see the Preface of 1818 and Introduction of 1831, and Appendix A.

  1See Olga Raggio, ‘The Myth of Prometheus: its survival and metamorphoses up to the eighteenth century’, in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, xxi (1958), 44–62; H. J. Rose, A Handbook of Greek Mythology (1928), pp. 56, 73; Peter L. Thorslev, The Byronic Hero (1962), pp. 112–24.

  2For a fuller account of the passages in Shaftesbury, see Appendix B.

  1 Samuel Chew, in Modern Lang. Notes, xxxiii (1918), 306–9. In Shelley’s Queen Mab (1813), viii, 211–12 n., Prometheus is referred to merely as a villain who corrupted mankind by giving them fire and thus enabling them to become meat-eaters. Of Manfred, Byron wrote to John Murray: ‘The Prometheus [of Aeschylus], if not exactly in my plan, has always been so much in my head, that I can easily conceive its influence over all or anything that I have written’. (Rowland E. Prothero (ed.), The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals (1900), iv, 174.)

  2 The ‘powerful engine’ might denote a powerful galvanic battery, as it did in an early conversation between Shelley and Hogg (R. Ingpen, Shelley in England (1917), p. 109).

  1 See Carl Grabo, A Newton among Poets (1930), passim, and The Magic Plant (1936), pp. 280–1, 432–3; also Douglas Bush, Mythology and the Romantic Tradition in English Poetry (1957), p. 151. For Shelley’s alchemical interests, Frederick L. Jones, The Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1964), i. 303; for Mary’s reading of Davy, Jones, Journal (see Bibliography), pp. 67–8, 73; and for Polidori’s possible contribution, article by James Rieger (see Bibliography).

  1 Shelley, Atastor, 11. 23–34. Alastor was published early in 1818, only a few months before Frankenstein was written.

  1 See Lyles, Bibliography, Appendix III, “Theatrical, Film and Television Versions of Frankenstein’.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  GRATEFUL acknowledgements are due to Lord Abinger and to the University Librarian, Duke University Library, for permission to consult microfilm of the MSS. of Frankenstein; to the University of Oklahoma Press for the use of passages from Mary Shelley’s Letters and Journal, edited by Frederick L. Jones, and to the Clarendon Press for the use of a passage from Shelley’s Letters, by the same editor; to the Interloan Librarian, University of Auckland and to the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, for assistance in procuring material; to the University of New Zealand Research Grants Committee; and to the English section of the A.U.L.L.A. Congress (Sydney, N.S.W., 1967), before whom an earlier version of the introduction was presented.

  NOTE ON THE TEXT

  Frankenstein was first published anonymously in three volumes in 1818. The second edition of 1823 is simply a page-by-page reprint of the first, rearranged in two volumes; its publication was arranged by William Godwin in order to follow up the success of Presumption, the stage version of the novel. The third edition of 1831 was extensively revised by Mary Shelley, especially in the earlier sections, and has been used as the basis of the present edition, which is printed from the British Museum copy.

  A copy of the novel, annotated by Mary Shelley for a possible new edition, was presented by her to her friend Mrs. Thomas in 1823; it was not used for the edition of 1831, and is now in the J. Pierpont Morgan Library.

  Portions of two manuscripts of Frankenstein are in the collection of Lord Abinger. These comprise a rough copy, with corrections and amendments by Shelley, which is almost complete except for Walton’s introductory letters; and a substantial portion of a fair copy, amounting to about the last one-sixth of the novel.

  Some misprints and irregularities have been corrected (where possible, by reference to the first edition of 1818); but otherwise occasional idiosyncratic spellings and irregularities of punctuation or syntax have been allowed to remain unchanged, except that double quotation marks have been changed to single throughout. Most editions, like this one, follow the text of 1831; the edition by J. Rieger (see Bibliography) is based on that of 1818, with a full collation of the 1831 variants, and includes in the text the manuscript notes in the Thomas copy.

  SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

  BIBLIOGRAPHY: W. H. Lyles, Mary Shelley: An Annotated Bibliography (1975) [this edition listed under ‘M. J. Kennedy’].

  EDITIONS OF FRANKENSTEIN: 3 vols. (London, 1818); ‘new edition’, 2 vols. (London, 1823); ‘revised, with introduction’, Bentley’s Standard Novels no. 9 (London, 1831); ed. with intro. by R. E. Dowse and D. J. Palmer (Everyman’s Library, 1963); ed. with afterword by H. Bloom (Signet Classics, 1965); ed. P. Fairclough, with introductory essay by M. Praz, in Three Gothic Novels (Penguin English Library, 1968); the 1818 Text, ed. J. Rieger (The Library of Literature, 1974).

  LETTERS AND JOURNALS: Frederick L. Jones (ed.), The Letters of Mary W. Shelley, 2 vols.; Mary Shelley’s Journal (1944 and 1947); Muriel Spark and D. Stanford, My Best Mary (1953)—a selection.

  LIVES AND STUDIES: R. Glynn Grylls, Mary Shelley (1938); Muriel Spark, Child of Light (1951); Elizabeth M. S. Nitchie, Mary Shelley (1953); W. A. Walling, Mary Shelley (Twayne’s English Authors Series, 1972).

  STUDIES: Louis Awad, ‘The Alchemist in English literature. 1. Frankenstein’, in Bulletin of the Faculty of Arts (Fuad I University, Cairo), xiii, Pt. I (May 1951), 33–82; Samuel Chew, on Byron’s use of the Prometheus myth, in Modern Language Notes, xxxiii (1918), 306–9; P. D. Fleck, ‘Mary Shelley’s notes to Shelley’s poems and Frankenstein’, in Studies in Romanticism, vi (1967), 226–54; A. Gérard, ‘Prométhée à l’envers’, in Synthèses, vii (Jan. 1953), 353–60; M. A. Goldberg, ‘Moral and myth in Mrs. Shelley’s Frankenstein’, in Keats-Shelley Journal, viii (1959), 27–38; A. J. Guérard, ‘Prometheus and the Aeolian lyre’, in Yale Review, xxxiii (1944), 482–97; C. Kreutz, Das Prometheussymbol in der Dichtung der englischen Romantik, Palaestra, Band 236 (1963), especially pp. 136–52; Mary G. Lund, ‘Mary Godwin Shelley and the Monster’, in University of Kansas City Review, xxviii (summer, 1962), 253–8, and ‘Shelley as Frankenstein’, in Forum, iv (fall, 1963), 28–31; M. Millhauser, ‘The Noble Savage in … Frankenstein’, in Notes and Queries (15 June 1946), 248–50; L. Nelson, jr., ‘Night thoughts on the Gothic Novel’, in Yale Review, lii (winter, 1963), 236–57; B. R. Pollin, ‘Philosophical and literary sources of Frankenstein’, in Comparative Literature, xvii (spring, 1965), 97–108; J. Rieger, The Mutiny Within (1967), especially pp. 81–9; J. Rieger, ‘Dr. Polidori and the genesis of Frankenstein’, in Studies in English Literature, iii (autumn, 1963), 461–72 (also included in the above); Muriel Spark, ‘Mary Shelley: a prophetic novelist’, in The Listener (22 Feb. 1951), 305–6; B. Aldiss, Frankenstein Unbound (1973)—novel; The Billion Year Spree (1973), pp. 7–39;
P. J. Callahan, ‘Frankenstein, Bacon, and the “Two Truths” ’, Extrapolation, xiv (Dec. 1972), 39–48; R. Kiely, The Romantic Novel in England (1972), pp. 155–73; G. Levine, ‘Frankenstein and the Tradition of Realism’, Novel, vii (fall 1973), 14–30; M. A. Mays, ‘Frankenstein, Mary Shelley’s Black Theodicy’, Southern Humanities Review, iii (spring, 1969), 146–53; Ellen Moers, ‘Female Gothic: The Monster’s Mother’, The New York Review of Books, xxi (21 March 1974), 24–8; C. Small, Ariel Like a Harpy (1972).

  A CHRONOLOGY OF MARY SHELLEY

  Age

  1797

  (30 August) Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin born at The Polygon, Somers Town, daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, who dies ten days later

  1807

  Godwin family move to Skinner Street, Holborn

  10

  1812

  (June) Goes to stay with the Baxter family at Dundee. Beginning of friendship between Godwin and Percy Bysshe Shelley

  14

  1814

  (May) Returns to Skinner Street; meets Shelley again (28 July) Mary, accompanied by her step-sister, Claire Clairmont, elopes with Shelley. Travel through France and Switzerland, and return to England (August-September)

  16

  1815

  (February) A girl-child born prematurely to Mary and Shelley, but dies a few days later

  (August) Settled with Shelley at Bishops Gate, Windsor

  17

  1816

  (January) A son, William, born

  (May) Mary and Shelley, with Claire Clairmont, leave England for Geneva, where they meet Lord Byron (who has already formed a liaison with Claire) and his physician Dr. Polidori

  18

  (June) Mary, Shelley, and Claire settle at the Maison Chappuis, at Montalègre, close to Byron at the Villa Diodati at Cologny, near Geneva. Frankenstein begun (July) Expedition to Chamonix and the Mer de Glace

  (September) Return to England

  (October) Suicide of Fanny Imlay, Mary’s half-sister

  (December) Suicide of Shelley’s first wife, Harriet. Mary and Shelley married at St. Mildred’s Church, Bread Street, London (30 December)

  19

  1817

  (March) Move to Marlow. Shelley refused custody of his children by his first marriage

  (May) Frankenstein completed

  (September) Daughter Clara born

  History of a Six-Weeks’ Tour published

  20

  1818

  (March) Mary and Shelley, with Claire and the children, leave for Italy. Frankenstein published

  20

  (June) Settled for two months at Bagni di Lucca

  (September) Move to Este. The baby Clara dies in Venice. Visits to Byron in Venice

  (November) Journey south to Rome

  (December) Settle in Naples for the winter

  21

  1819

  (March) Return to Rome, where her son William dies

  (June). Departure for Leghorn

  21

  (September) Move to Florence for approaching confinement

  (November) A son, Percy Florence, born

  22

  1820

  (January) Move to Pisa and (June) to Leghorn

  (August) Move to Bagni di San Giuliano, near Pisa

  22

  (October) Driven out of San Giuliano by floods, the Shelleys move to Pisa

  23

  1821

  (April) Return to Bagni di San Giuliano for the summer

  23

  (October) The Shelleys move to Pisa, with Edward and Jane Williams and with Byron as near neighbour

  24

  1822

  (May) The Shelleys settle with the Williamses at Casa Magni, near Lerici

  24

  (July) Shelley and Williams sail to Leghorn to meet Leigh Hunt but are lost at sea on the return journey (September) Mary joins the Hunts and Byron at Genoa

  25

  1823

  (February) Valperga published

  (August) Returns to London

  25

  1824

  (June) Shelley’s Posthumous Poems published, but with-drawn on the insistence of Shelley’s father, Sir Timothy

  26

  1826

  (February) The Last Man published

  (September) Percy Florence becomes heir to the Shelley title and estate on the death of Charles Bysshe, Shelley’s son by his first wife Harriet

  29

  1830

  Perkin Warbeck published

  32

  1832

  (September) Percy Florence entered at Harrow

  35

  1835

  Lodore published

  37

  1837

  Falkner, her last novel, published (July) Percy Florence entered at Trinity College, Cambridge

  39

  1839

  Publication of Shelley’s Poetical Works, with notes partly replacing the unwritten biography Publication of Shelley’s Essays and Letters

  41

  1840

  (June–November) Continental tour with Percy Florence and friends

  42

  1841

  (February) Percy Florence graduates

  43

  1842–3

  Another continental tour

  44–6

  1844

  Rambles in Germany and Italy published

  (April) Death of Sir Timothy Shelley; Percy Florence succeeds to title and estate

  46

  1851

  (February) Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley dies at Chester Square, London; buried in Bournemouth churchyard

  53

  FRANKENSTEIN

  OR

  THE MODERN PROMETHEUS

  Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay

  To mould Me man? Did I solicit thee

  From darkness to promote me?—

  Paradise Lost [X. 743–5]

  TO

  WILLIAM GODWIN

  Author of Political Justice, Caleb Williams, &c.

  THESE VOLUMES

  Are respectfully inscribed

  BY

  THE AUTHOR

  INTRODUCTION

  [1831]

  THE Publishers of the Standard Novels,1 in selecting ‘frankenstein’ for one of their series, expressed a wish that I should furnish them with some account of the origin of the story. I am the more willing to comply, because I shall thus give a general answer to the question, so very frequently asked me—‘How I, then a young girl, came to think of, and to dilate upon, so very hideous an idea?’ it is true that I am very averse to bringing myself forward in print; but as my account will only appear as an appendage to a former production, and as it will be confined to such topics as have connection with my authorship alone, I can scarcely accuse myself of a personal intrusion.

  It is not singular that, as the daughter of two persons of distinguished literary celebrity,2 I should very early in life have thought of writing. As a child I scribbled; and my favourite pastime, during the hours given me for recreation, was to ‘write stories’. Still I had a dearer pleasure than this, which was the formation of castles in the air—the indulging in waking dreams—the following up trains of thought, which had for their subject the formation of a succession of imaginary incidents. My dreams were at once more fantastic and agreeable than my writings. In the latter I was a close imitator—rather doing as others had done, than putting down the suggestions of my own mind. What I wrote was intended at least for one other eye—my childhood’s companion and friend; but my dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed—my dearest pleasure when free.

  I lived principally in the country as a girl, and passed a considerable time in Scotland. I made occasional visits to the more picturesque parts; but my habitual residence1 was on the blank and dreary northern shores of the Tay, near Dundee. Blank and dreary on retrospection I call them; they were not so to me then. They were the eyry of fre
edom, and the pleasant region where unheeded I could commune with the creatures of my fancy. I wrote then—but in a most common-place style. It was beneath the trees of the grounds belonging to our house, or on the bleak sides of the woodless mountains near, that my true compositions, the airy flights of my imagination, were born and fostered. I did not make myself the heroine of my tales. Life appeared to me too common-place an affair as regarded myself. I could not figure to myself that romantic woes or wonderful events would ever be my lot; but I was not confined to my own identity, and I could people the hours with creations far more interesting to me at that age, than my own sensations.

  After this my life became busier, and reality stood in place of fiction. My husband, however, was, from the first, very anxious that I should prove myself worthy of my parentage, and enrol myself on the page of fame. He was for ever inciting me to obtain literary reputation, which even on my own part I cared for then, though since I have become infinitely indifferent to it. At this time he desired that I should write, not so much with the idea that I could produce any thing worthy of notice, but that he might himself judge how far I possessed the promise of better things hereafter. Still I did nothing. Travelling, and the cares of a family, occupied my time; and study, in the way of reading, or improving my ideas in communication with his far more cultivated mind, was all of literary employment that engaged my attention.