Frankenstein

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Cover design inspired by a tattoo done by Ella Thrall.

Mary Shelley (then Godwin), Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, and a few others were in Geneva for what was called the Year Without A Summer. The darkness and rain lead the group to write and tell ghost stories to share amongst themselves. This is how Frankenstein was conceived and was later published anonymously in 1818.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein follows Victor Frankenstein, a scientist on a mission to impart life onto a creature made from corpses. Thus, Frankenstein’s Monster is created—an 8 foot tall creature who, unlike in the movie depictions of him, is highly intellectual. Frankenstein rejects his creation, causing Frankenstein’s Monster to fall into a pit of despair, vowing to hurt Frankenstein in the way that Frankenstein hurt him.

This digital edition, created by Mandy Abokhair, seeks to bring together Mary Shelley’s original manuscript pages with a free, online version of the text. These manuscript pages are stored at the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford and have been accessed through the Shelley-Godwin Archive website. This digital edition of Frankenstein illuminates specific moments in the manuscript where something interesting it happening—mass amounts of editing, lack of editing, torn pages, and famous quotes. The manuscript pages also include Percy Bysshe Shelley’s edits and notes. The manuscript pages are labelled by chapter according to Shelley's distinction, not the modern edition's published chapters. Seeing the manuscript pages alongside the digital text helps to foster an understanding of where texts originate as well as providing a unique insight into Mary Shelley’s thought process. The ultimate goal of this digital edition is to allow people to explore Frankenstein in a new way—a way that incorporates both published and unpublished texts.