Frankenstein
Mary Shelley stood at the edge of a waking dream on the night of the 16th of June 1816. The air inside Villa Diodati felt heavy with damp and the smell of burning wood from the log fire. Lord Byron had challenged his guests to write ghost stories, but Mary could not think of one. She lay awake after midnight while her companions slept. Her mind conjured an image of a pale student who would wake a lifeless thing into motion. This vision haunted her until dawn broke over the Swiss Alps.
The group had gathered in Switzerland because the weather turned violent that summer. Mount Tambora had erupted in Indonesia during 1815, causing global temperatures to drop. Rain fell constantly for weeks, forcing the travelers indoors. They read German ghost stories translated into French by candlelight. John Polidori later wrote The Vampyre based on this gathering, but Mary's story became something far more enduring.
She began writing what she thought would be a short tale. Percy Bysshe Shelley encouraged her to expand it into a full novel. Mary wrote the first four chapters shortly after her half-sister Fanny committed suicide. Personal tragedy shaped the narrative as much as the storm outside. She was only eighteen years old when she started composing the manuscript.
Victor Frankenstein spent two years constructing a body from raw materials supplied by dissecting rooms and slaughterhouses. He assembled human parts stolen from charnel houses and fresh graves with painstaking care. When he finally brought the creature to life, Victor fled in terror. He returned the next day to find the being gone.
The newly conscious creature wandered alone through the world. He discovered fire and learned to avoid humans who found him frightening. He hid inside a hovel attached to a small house where he could watch a family without being seen. As the family taught their language to a foreigner, the creature also learned to speak and write. He found books including Paradise Lost and learned to read papers hidden in his clothes.
He revealed himself to the blind father of the family who treated him with kindness. When the rest of the family returned they were horrified by his appearance and chased him away. The creature saved a young girl from drowning but was shot by her father who misunderstood the act. Embittered by humanity he traveled to Geneva to confront his creator. He killed William, Victor's younger brother, then framed Justine for the crime. Victor suspected the creature was responsible but did not intervene while Justine was tried and executed.
The novel reflects Enlightenment ideas about political leaders using power responsibly alongside Romantic fears that misused power destroys society. John Milton's Paradise Lost influenced the text heavily. The monster compares himself to Adam and Lucifer after reading the epic poem. Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner appears as a theme of guilt while William Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey represents innocence.
Some scholars suggest Mary read Humphry Davy's Elements of Chemical Philosophy which described powers bestowed upon man. Others point to François-Félix Nogaret's 1790 political parable featuring an inventor named Wak-wik-vauk-an-son-frankésteïn who creates a life-sized automaton. No evidence confirms Shelley had read this work yet parallels exist between their stories.
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was published on the 1st of January 1818 by Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones. The first edition appeared anonymously with only 500 copies printed in three volumes. Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote the preface for his wife while dedicating the book to philosopher William Godwin. Mary Shelley's name did not appear
until the second edition published in Paris in 1821.
A French translation translated by Jules Saladin emerged as early as 1821. The second English edition came out on the 11th of August 1823 following the success of Richard Brinsley Peake's stage play Presumption. This version credited Mary Shelley as author on its title page. On the 31st of October 1831 Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley released a popular one-volume edition heavily revised by Mary Shelley.
The 1831 text included a lengthy new introduction presenting an embellished version of the story's genesis. It removed many references to scientific ideas popular around 1816 and added dialogue to some characters while removing it from others. Victor appears more critically in this later edition compared to the original kindness shown in 1818. Scholars like Anne K. Mellor argue the original version preserves Mary Shelley's true vision.
James Whale's 1931 film adaptation created the modern image of the creature with bolts in his neck and stitches across his skin. In Mary Shelley's original work Victor uses an unspecified process to imbue vitality into inanimate matter rather than electricity. The creature is never given a name in the novel itself. He is called wretch,
monster, demon, devil, fiend, or it throughout the text.
Victor addresses him as vile insect, abhorred monster, wretched devil, and abhorred devil during their conversations. The public began calling the Creature Frankenstein after Whale's cinematic release. This misnomer continued through Bride of Frankenstein in 1935 and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. An author noted in 1908 how universally intelligent people misuse the term Frankenstein to describe hideous monsters.
Edith Wharton described an unruly child as an infant Frankenstein in her 1916 novel The Reef. David Lindsay mentioned the maker of poor Frankenstein in a 1844 story published in The Rover. The confusion persists today even though Mary Shelley maintained she derived the name from a dream-vision involving German castles.
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Common questions
When was the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley first published?
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was published on the 1st of January 1818 by Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones. The first edition appeared anonymously with only 500 copies printed in three volumes.
Where did Mary Shelley write the story for Frankenstein?
Mary Shelley wrote the initial chapters at Villa Diodati in Switzerland during the summer of 1816. The group gathered there because violent weather from the Mount Tambora eruption forced them indoors to read ghost stories.
Who is the actual creator named in the book Frankenstein?
The creature never receives a name within the text and is referred to as wretch, monster, demon, devil, fiend, or it throughout the narrative. Victor Frankenstein remains the sole character identified as the creator while the public mistakenly applies his surname to the being after James Whale's 1931 film adaptation.
What scientific ideas influenced the creation of Frankenstein?
Some scholars suggest Mary Shelley read Humphry Davy's Elements of Chemical Philosophy which described powers bestowed upon man. Others point to François-Félix Nogaret's 1790 political parable featuring an inventor who creates a life-sized automaton though no evidence confirms Shelley had read this work.
How does the 1831 edition of Frankenstein differ from the original 1818 version?
The 1831 text included a lengthy new introduction presenting an embellished version of the story's genesis released by Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley on the 31st of October 1831. It removed many references to scientific ideas popular around 1816 and added dialogue to some characters while removing it from others.