He sleeps but he is awakened he opens his eyes behold the horrid thing stands at his bedside, opening his curtains, and looking on him with yellow, watery, but speculative eyes.įrankenstein began as a short story, but Mary was encouraged to flesh it out into a novel. He would hope that, left to itself, the slight spark of life which he had communicated would fade that this thing, which had received such imperfect animation, would subside into dead matter and he might sleep in the belief that the silence of the grave would quench for ever the transient existence of the hideous corpse which he had looked upon as the cradle of life. His success would terrify the artist he would rush away from his odious handywork, horror-stricken. Frightful must it be for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Upon going to bed, she experienced a sort of waking dream, revealing: I saw-with shut eyes, but acute mental vision, -I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. In her Author’s introduction to the standard novels edition, Shelley claims that after all the macabre discussions and stories, she was quite unable to sleep. Mary busied herself to think of ‘ a story which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature, and awaken thrilling horror-one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart.’ They were particularly inspired, and haunted, by a tome entitled Fantasmagoriana ( Tales of the Dead) – an anthology of German ghost stories, translated into French, published in 1813 – and it was when reading this that the group were compelled to challenge each other to write their own tales of the macabre. As the weather was so wet and miserable, the group were unable to enjoy the outdoors, and instead they closed the shutters, lit candles and sat around the fire writing, reading and telling stories. Indeed, 1816 is frequently referred to as the "Year Without a Summer". The resulting plumes of volcanic ash obscured the light of the sun, plunging much of the world into a premature winter. The summer of 1816 was particularly cold, dark and wet due to the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815. Shelley began to write Frankenstein during that ‘wet, ungenial summer’ of 1816 while she was residing in a villa on the shores of Lake Geneva with her partner Percy Bysshe Shelley, and their friends Lord Byron, Claire Claremont, and Byron’s personal physician, John Polidori (whose story The Vampyre would congeal the conventions of and help popularise the literary vampire). One of the most fascinating aspects of the novel, for me anyway, are the circumstances that led to its conception. With its themes concerning the destructive pursuit of knowledge and dangerous ambition, morality regarding scientific/technological advancement, existentialism and societal isolation, Frankenstein continues to wield incredible influence over literature, cinema and indeed other forms of popular culture to this day.
Published several years later, Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus became one of the cornerstones of Gothic literature. Mary began writing what would become her debut novel when she was 18. Horrified by his creation, Victor rejects and abandons the creature, who eventually seeks revenge on his creator. It tells of Victor Frankenstein, an ambitious young scientist whose highly unorthodox experiments create a living, sentient creature assembled from the parts of stolen human cadavers.
Published in January 1818, Mary Shelley’s classic Gothic novel Frankenstein turns 200 years old this month. A bronze statue of Frankenstein's Creature created by Geneva artist collective KLAT, not only represents the fictional character, but “the figure of the vagrant or the marginal.”
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