Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus

FRANKENSTEIN:

                                  OR,

                         THE MODERN PROMETHEUS.

                          BY MARY W. SHELLEY.

            AUTHOR OF THE LAST MAN, PERKIN WARBECK, &c. &c.

    [Transcriber's Note: This text was produced from a photo-reprint of
    the 1831 edition.]


    REVISED, CORRECTED,
    AND ILLUSTRATED WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION,
    BY THE AUTHOR.

    LONDON:
    HENRY COLBURN AND RICHARD BENTLEY,
    NEW BURLINGTON STREET:
    BELL AND BRADFUTE, EDINBURGH;
    AND CUMMING, DUBLIN.
    1831.




INTRODUCTION.


The Publishers of the Standard Novels, 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, when 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, 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 residence 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 freedom, 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.

In the summer of 1816, we visited Switzerland, and became the neighbours
of Lord Byron. At first we spent our pleasant hours on the lake, or
wandering on its shores; and Lord Byron, who was writing the third canto
of Childe Harold, was the only one among us who put his thoughts upon
paper. These, as he brought them successively to us, clothed in all the
light and harmony of poetry, seemed to stamp as divine the glories of
heaven and earth, whose influences we partook with him.

But it proved a wet, ungenial summer, and incessant rain often confined
us for days to the house. Some volumes of ghost stories, translated from
the German into French, fell into our hands. There was the History of
the Inconstant Lover, who, when he thought to clasp the bride to whom he
had pledged his vows, found himself in the arms of the pale ghost of her
whom he had deserted. There was the tale of the sinful founder of his
race, whose miserable doom it was to bestow the kiss of death on all the
younger sons of his fated house, just when they reached the age of
promise.