Frankenstein
The Modern Prometheus

Background

The novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus was written by Mary Shelley in the early 19th century; the story and the gruesome monster described within have spawned an entire sub-genre of horror stories and terrified innumerable children and adults over the nearly 200 years since its conception. Born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, the author was the daughter of a philosopher and a feminist writer. Mary Shelley became the second wife of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley; she began writing her most famed novel, Frankenstein, while spending a summer with her soon-to-be husband and Lord Byron in Geneva. It was 1816, known as The Year Without a Summer in the northern hemisphere, as the previous year’s volcanic eruptions at Mount Tambora (in modern-day Indonesia) helped cool the atmosphere and brought months of dreary rain and cold to Europe. Byron and the Shelleys passed the time in Switzerland by reading, writing, and discussing both science and art. One of their readings that summer was a French translation of a book of German ghost stories, Fantasmagoriana (later published in English as Tales of the Dead). In the introduction to the revised 1831 edition of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley writes that Lord Byron suggested that they all write their own tales of terror; Mary won the friendly competition with a first draft of what would become Frankenstein. She completed the novel during the next year, and a first edition was published anonymously in early 1818, when she was just 20 years old. Though well received within Shelley’s literary circle where the authorship was known, many outside critics did not take to the tale. Nonetheless, it quickly became popular and has since spawned a plethora of mad scientist stories.

The story was first translated to the stage during Mary Shelley’s lifetime, and numerous versions have appeared since. Frankenstein has also appeared on screen; the most famous Frankenstein-related film is James Whale’s 1931 masterpiece, starring Boris Karloff as The Monster. It was followed four years later by Bride of Frankenstein, with Elsa Lanchester as The Monster’s Mate. Despite the fact that these films are a departure from the novel that originated the characters, the iconic depictions of these monsters in Whale’s films have remained the common faces of these horrors today.

• Frankenstein is not the name of the monster, but rather the surname of his creator, Victor Frankenstein.
• The first stage production of Frankenstein took place in 1823, just five years after the anonymous publication of Shelley’s novel.
• Frankenstein was first published anonymously in 1818, when Mary Shelley was just twenty years old and newly married to poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.