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<principal>Elisa Beshero-Bondar</principal> <editor>Raffaele Viglianti</editor> <editor>Yuying Jin</editor> <respStmt> <resp>Assisted in <date>2017-2019</date> by <name>Rikk Mulligan</name>, <name>Scott Weingart</name>, <name>Matthew Lincoln</name>, <name>Jon Klancher</name>, <name>Avery Wiscomb</name> and <name>John Quirk</name> from</resp> <orgName>Carnegie Mellon University.</orgName> </respStmt> <respStmt> <resp>Assisted in 2020 - 2023 by <name>Nathan Hammer</name>, <name>Rachel Gerzevske</name>, <name>Jacqueline Chan</name> and <name>Mia Borgia</name> from</resp> <orgName>Penn State Erie: The Behrend College.</orgName> </respStmt> </titleStmt> <publicationStmt> <authority>Frankenstein Variorum Project</authority> <date>2023—</date> <availability> <licence>Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License</licence> </availability> </publicationStmt> <sourceDesc> <p>This file is developed from a process of collating five distinct editions for the <title level="m">Frankenstein Variorum digital edition on 2023-11-30T21:50:55.93184-05:00.

The Frankenstein Variorum digitally compares five versions of the novel Frankenstein prepared between 1816 and 1831. fMS refers to the manuscript notebooks dated roughly 1816 to 1818 and stored in three boxes at the Bodleian library in Oxford. f1818 refers to the first anonymous publication of Frankenstein in 1818. fThomas refers to a copy of the 1818 edition left by Mary Shelley with her friend Mrs. Thomas in Italy before she left for England after the death of Percy Shelley. This copy contains handwritten marginalia indicating edits she would make if there were ever a new edition, and apparently was not available for Mary Shelley to consult later. f1823 refes to the published edition prepared by William Godwin, the first to feature Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley’s name as the author. f1831 refers to a heavily revised version prepared by Mary Shelley in 1831 for Bentley's Standard Series of novels. This edition was bound together in one volume with Friedrich von Schiller’s The Ghost Seer .

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. Draft Bodleain MS, Abinger c.56 and c.57 in Shelley-Godwin Archive, ed. Neil Fraistat, Elizabeth Denlinger, Raffaele Viglianti. 2013—present, . Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus. In three volumes, London: Printed for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, 1818. The Pennsylvania Electronic Edition, ed. Stuart Curran and Jack Lynch, 1995—present, . The Thomas Copy: Marginalia in the form of additions, deletions, and notes hand-written on a single copy of the 1818 edition. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus. In two volumes, London: Printed for G. and W. B. Whittaker, 1823. Mary W. Shelley. Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus. Bentley Standard Novels, No. 9, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1831. The Pennsylvania Electronic Edition, ed. Stuart Curran and Jack Lynch, 1995—present, .

PREFACE.

THE event on which this fiction is founded has been supposed, by Dr. Darwin, and some of the physiological writers of Germany, as not of impossible occurrence. I shall not be supposed as according the remotest degree of serious faith to such an imagination; yet, in assuming it as the basis of a work of fancy, I have not considered myself as merely weaving a series of supernatural terrors. The event on which the interest of the story depends is exempt from the disadvantages of a mere tale of spectres or enchantment. It was recommended by the novelty of the situations which it developes; and, however impossible as a physical fact, affords a point of view to the imagination for the delineating of human passions more comprehensive and commanding than any which the ordinary relations of existing events can yield.

I have thus endeavoured to preserve the truth of the elementary principles of human nature, while I have not scrupled to innovate upon their combinations. The

Iliad,

the tragic poetry of

Greece,—Shakespeare,

in the

Tempest

and

Midsummer Night’s Dream,

—and most especially Milton, in

Paradise Lost,

conform to this rule; and the most humble novelist, who seeks to confer or receive amusement from his labours, may, without presumption, apply to prose fiction a licence, or rather a rule, from the adoption of which so many exquisite combinations of human feeling have resulted in the highest specimens of poetry.

The circumstance on which my story rests was suggested in casual conversation. It was

commenced

partly as a source of amusement, and partly as an expedient for exercising any untried resources of mind. Other motives were mingled with these, as the work proceeded. I am by no means indifferent to the manner in which whatever moral tendencies exist in the sentiments or characters it contains shall affect the reader; yet my chief concern in this respect has been limited to the avoiding the enervating effects of the novels of the present day, and to the exhibition of the amiableness of domestic affection, and the excellence of universal virtue. The opinions which naturally spring from the character and situation of the hero are by no means to be conceived as existing always in my own conviction; nor is any inference justly to be drawn from the following pages as prejudicing any philosophical doctrine of whatever kind.

It is a subject also of additional interest to the author, that this story was begun in the majestic region where the scene is principally laid, and in society which cannot cease to be regretted. I passed the summer of 1816 in the environs of Geneva. The season was cold and rainy, and in the evenings we crowded around a blazing wood fire, and occasionally amused ourselves with some German stories of ghosts, which happened to fall into our hands. These tales excited in us a playful desire of imitation. Two other friends (a tale from the pen of one of whom would be far more acceptable to the public than any thing I can ever hope to produce) and myself agreed to write each a story, founded on some supernatural occurrence.

The weather, however, suddenly became serene; and my two friends left me on a journey among the Alps, and lost, in the magnificent scenes which they present, all memory of their ghostly visions. The following tale is the only one which has been completed.

FRANKENSTEIN;

OR, THE

MODERN PROMETHEUS.