Full title: The Lady and Her Monster: A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley's Masterpiece. The author has her MFA from Emerson College in Massachusetts.
I probably read the 1831 edition of Frankenstein; will now read the 1818 edition. I have ordered the Norton Critical edition which includes the 1818 edition.
Prologue
August 24, 1806 -- Mary Godwin (future mother of Mary Shelley) and her younger stepsister, Jane Clairmont (later Claire Clairmont); on Skinner Street, London, listening in on father's dinner party
Father: William Godwin
Samuel Taylor Coleridge in attendance; reciting verses from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, published 1798
Others who had attended similar dinner parties: Humphry Davy, Wm Wordsworth, Charles Lamb
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner had awakened popular fascination with the macabre
A decade later, Mary used similar imagery in Frankenstein: the Modern Prometheus
Mary Godwin (future mother of Mary Shelley), b. 1797, London
Her mother: Mary Wollstonecraft
Father: Wm Godwin
Mary Wollstonecraft: died of puerperal fever (retained placenta) eleven days after giving birth to Mary; age 36 at death; the first and most influential feminist and author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women
Mary Godwin would become Mary Shelley
Wm and Mary met at dinner party to honor Thomas Paine, who had just published The Rights of Man, 1794
Mary had proposed a menage-a-trois relationship with Henry Fuseli (18 years her senior) and his wife; rejected.
Mary in Paris; alone; fell in love with American Gilbert Imlay; daughter Fanny in 1795
Mary, alone with daughter, to London. Imlay abandons her. Depressed, she jumps into Thames to commit suicide; survives. No longer depressed.
Reconnects with Wm Godwin.
Becomes pregnant with 2nd child; marries Wm, despite his beliefs that marriage was wrong; 1797
Dies in childbirth, 1797.
1801: Wm seduced by and marries Mrs Jane Clairmont, the wicked stepmother
A new son: Wm Godwin (junior); the family lived near the prison gallows; much written on crowds to watch the hangings
Godwin met Humphry Davy -- 1799 -- introduced by Samuel Taylor Coledrige -- Godwin delved deeply into mysteries of chemistry.
All wanted to "get high" -- Pneumatic Institution -- Godwin, Davy, Gregory Watt (son of famous engineer James Watt), Davies Giddy, Thomas Beddoes
NO2 -- laughing gas -- hallucinogenic
Pneumatic Institute knew of Luigi Galvani, frog dissection and Galvanism
Chapter 2: Waking The Dead
1786: Luigi Galvani -- dissections
Italy: where medical dissection probably began (at this time, at least)
Electricity, muscle contractions
Alessandro Volta -- 1792; disproved much of Galvani's work.
Battery: Zn -- brine -- Cu
Galvinsim on the severely depressed (electroshock therapy): Giovanni Aldini
Chapter 3: Making Monsters
Aldini: arrives in London, 1802
London: at the cusp of a medical revolution. Hospitals teeming with doctors and surgeons; experimenting on the living as well as the dead.
James Graham, Edinburgh, early 20's in Philadelphia where he learned of Ben Franklin's kite experiments. Temple of Health; delivered bolts of electricity, 1779; the Temple of Health considered a bordello for the rich; Aldini had ot be more circumspect in his clinic so it would not take on aspects of the Temple of Health.
Corpses: in England, the gallows -- the only legal source from which to collect corpses
Resurrectionist gangs sprang up. Ben Crouch -- the most famous gang leader at the time.
Diary of a Resurrectionist, Joseph Naples, chronicled grave-stealing, 1811 -1812
Royal Humane Society in response to experiments on the living, 1774. Initially called the Society for the Recovery of Persons Apparently Drowned.
Giovanni Aldini: found his perfect corpse, 1802; famous homicide case; the George Foster family homicide.
1836: Charles Dickens -- visits prison of Newgate -- describes what George Foster was probably experiencing.
1752: Murder Act of 1752: added dissection as crime punishable by hanging death.
Murderes on the gallows were sent to anatomists -- family of murderers forbidden to prevent this (p. 83); punishment was 7 years exile on "king's plantation" in America.
Chapter 4: A Meeting Of Two Minds
1502: Elisa jumped off the Devil's Bridge near Lake Zurich
Her son: Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim --> Paracelsus --> revolutionized the discipline of alchemy.
French Revolution left in its wake: a) Industrial Revolution; and, b) the beginning of the scientific revolution. At this very time, the debate over what it meant to be human; or could electricity be used create man? The pamphlets and books were numerous; Mary Shelly was reading them. (p. 94)
As a teenager, what inspired Shelley? Giovanni Aldini, Luigi Galvani, Humphry Davy, Paracelsus, Cornelius Agrippa (accused of consorting with devils), Simon Magnus (Simon the Sorcerer).
Shelley's work begins with references to Agrippa, Paracelsus, Magnus.
Paracelsus:the first to use the term homunculus -- animated being he gave life to -- the prototype for what Victor Frankenstein was to create.
Paracelsus: an alchemist.
The town of Ingolstadt (Paracelsus) and Ingolstadt is where Victor Frankenstein coincidentally attends University of Ingolstadt.
Jewish-created creatures: golems. (First thought: Gollum, The Lord of the Rings).
1812: an impressionable, idealistic young man, Percy Shelley writes a letter to Wm Godwin (he was cult figure for many young men); he had read all the books of Albertus Magnus and Paracelsus.
Shelley: six months at Oxford before expelled; fascinated with science, chemistry; esp electricity; spoke of powers of thunder and electricity.
Cavollo: 1793; brought Galvani's work to England.
Shelley preoccupied with the land of the dead.
Shelley suffered debilitating waking dreams; took laudanum to quell them; tinctura thebaica was a derivative of opium; fashionable during Shelley's lifetime.
Most alchemists dabbled with opium; the plant Papaver somniferum.
Paracelsus derived the name laudanum from the Latin laudare "to praise."
Description of Shelley: schizophrenic.
Cousin Thomas Medwin shared room with him at Oxford. Once saved Shelley from jumping out of wind while "crazy."
1814: meeting between Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Godwin (possibly first met in 1812, but no record).
[She was born 1797, so about 17 years old in 1814.]
Mary had been sent to live with family friend in 1812, to Dundee, Scotland; stepmother and Mary could not get along. At Dundee, Mary learned all about whaling industry; would have heard tales of frigid Arctic Sea.
1814: Mary returns home, to Skinner Street, London.
Three women living in house where Percy Shelley practically a constant guest. The three girls, Fanny, Mary, and Jane (Claire) Clairmont). All had a crust on Percy; Percy only interested in the smart and clever Mary who shared similar ideas, thoughts at he (Percy). He was called "Mad Shelley."
Mary often went to her mother's gravesite at St Pancras; Shelley would have loved it there, "the land of the dead."
Only one thing stood in way of Mary's love for Shelley: he was married and had a toddler, Ianthe (p. 114).
Percy and Mary elope to Switzerland, 1814 -- at their side as none other than Jane (Claire) Clairmont.
A very long story by Mark Twain, "In Defence of Harriet Shelley" -- a long article, p. 117.
Chapter 5: Eloping To The Mainland
Percy Shelley, Mary Godwin, step-sister Jane Clairmont flee Skinner Street, middle of the summaer
Later he even asked Harriet (his wife) to join them; she died 1816, I believe)
Mary probably initiated the idea to elope; eloped July 27.
Impregnated at St Pancras cemetery? (p. 127)
Walked across France; sickly donkey.
Mary's Frankenstein astounds readers with its detail for the natural world - she gained that on walking across France.
To Switzerland.
Mary began collecting local tales around Lake Lucerne.
Ran out of money -- August 28 -- boarded a boat on the Rhine to return home -- the legend of Lorelie.
The author mentions Sylvia Plath in conjunction with Lorelei, p. 133.
September 2: reached Mannheim -- village of Nieder-Beerbach; in the distant, infamous Burg Frankenstein! -- p. 134. Near Nieder-Beerbach takes a 3-hour without Claire (Jane)
Then the story of Frankenstein name (p. 134).
Vlad the Impaler (p. 135). Bram Stoker's Dracula.
The story of Johanna Konrad Dippel -- related to the Frankensteins not by birth but by living there (p. 137)
Dippel: alchemy again; apparently pretty successful.
Dippel --> medicine at University of Leyden, Holland; U of Leyden, the oldest university in the Netherlands, founded by Prince Wm and Mary in 1575; Leyden's Jar -- invented there in mid-1700's.
Dippel's link with the occult, electricity, and Frankenstein.
Unknown if Percy Shelley and Mary Godwin had heard of the infamous alchemist Johann Dippel -- never mentioned in either of their diaries.
Back on the boat -- after a 3-hour excursion.
Chapter 6: My Hideous Progeny
April 10 - 11, 1815: Mount Tambora, volcano on Indonesia island of Sumbawa begins to erupt. Heard in Singaport -- 1816 became The Year Without Summer -- as far away as Canada as well as New England -- frost persisted well into summer.
Mary and Percy returned to England, Sept, 1814 -- their reputations tarnished. Mary was ostracized for destroying a marriage. She also learned she was pregnant.
But there was no official attachment between Percy and Mary. He was still legally married to Harriet Westbrook. The child would have no legal rights.
Jane (Claire) refused to move back to Skinner Street; initially an unwelcome guest at Percy and Mary's home (but that would change).
Jane morbidly afraid of ghosts, supernatural; would hide in Percy and Mary's bed (when they were in it).
Feb 22, 1815: Mary's baby born; died March 6; full-term but sickly.
Shelley dx'd with consumption (TB) and expected not to live more than a few months.
Claire and Percy spent more and more time together, alone. Mary found friendship with Percy's old friend, Thomas Jeffferson Hogg.
Hogg and Mary become very close. Intimate?
Percy insisted on Mary and Hogg's intimacy, probably because he and Claire had become sexually intimate during Mary's pregnancy.
Claire set out to seduce a man more well known that Percy --> the poet George Gordon Noel Byron -- eventually Lord Byron.
The story of Lord Byron (p. 154) -- a lascivious, shocking madman. Eventually married Annabella Milbanke.
Byron: psychotic; due to incessant drinking coupled with ferocious anorexia. Highly self-conscious of limp -- a congenital defect. Walked on toes to hide limp; made him appear taller; almost no one noticed his limp.
Habit of telling tall tales.
1815: Lady Byron gives birth to Augusta Ada -- named after Byron's sister -- barely a month later.
Annabella left Byron -- no explanation given, but she probably learned of his incestuous affair with his sister.
It was during this time that he began receiving letters from Claire. Letters soon turned sexual.
Byron plans to elope to the continent, perhaps Switzerland (p. 160).
Claire wants to follow Byron to the continent.
January 24, 1816 -- Mary gives birth to William -- named after father. Shelley hounded by debt collectors; leaves for Italy with Mary. Claire is still an unwelcome guest and a nuisance. Claire wanted to go to Switzerland, not Italy. They all compromise: Lake Geneva.
Mary, Shelley, Claire, and baby William -- will go as one group.
Separately Byron is also planning to leave.
Byron's personal physician, the young, naive, vain Dr John William Polidori (p. 161) (one of youngest physicians ever; Edinburgh trained). He wanted a literary career; pushed into medicine by his father. Commissioned by a publisher, John Murray, to keep a journal of his travels with Byron, "Journal of a Journey Through Flanders." Few knew he was keeping a journal, not even Shelley who would eventually become a subject of the journal.
Journal: heavily convoluted history -- April 24, 1816 - December, 1816, when Polidori abandoned it.
"It was, it is, an interesting read because Polidori's diary has remained one of the only written records, albeit in short passages, of the famous ghost story competition that gave birth to Frankenstein, or so Mary Shelley said it did." -- p. 163. Meticulous, if not always flattering notes.
Unfortunately the original was destroyed after being rewritten and strongly edited by Polidori's sister Charlotte Lydia Polidori, p. 163.
In Switzerland, Byron gets a note from Claire -- they had also arrived (Bryon made sure everyone knew how to reach him). He id not want to see Claire -- felt pestered.
The story of Fanny, begins p. 165.
Weather at Lake Geneva, 1816, miserable.
Settled on Maison Chapins, a short walk from Villa Diodati, where Byron set up residence.
Byron drawn to Shelley -- two poets, p. 168.
Bryon / half-sister Augusta -- two children. Mary felt abandoned by Shelley.
Background in medicine, science, occult, anatomy, etc., that led to talk that led to the book.
Poldori medical school thesis, "Oneirodynia" -- waking-dream -- to which Mary attributed the arrival of her story.
June 15 - June 17, 1816 -- the year of no summer -- ghost story began to develop.
Chapter 7: Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
June, 1816: Claire told Percy she was pregnant; unclear when Mary was told. Lord Byron upset; he knew it would cost him money.
End of summer, 1816: group leaving Lake Geneva.
Happy to see Polidori leave.
Plans for Claire to leave her child with relatives; Claire to be "the aunt" to her child; could see child whenever she wanted without raising suspicion.
Polidori suicide, 1821.
Autumn, 1816: Percy, Mary, their baby William, and Claire return to London (September).
Claire sequestered/pregnant in Bath, England.
Mary continued writing her story.
Fanny commits suicide September, 1816, Bristol.
Mary, Percy, Claire -- secluded in mourning.
December 10, 1816: Harriet Westwood, suicide, in Serpentine River.
Mary and Percy marry 20 days after the suicide. Shelley -- intent to take custody of his two children by Harriet -- Ianthe and Charles.
December 30, 1816: Mary and Percy marry. Married at St Mildred's Church, London; Wm and Mrs Godwin are witnesses. Mr Godwin happy for his daughter.
January 12, 1817: Claire gives birth to a baby girl.
By spring, 1817, Frankenstein first draft. Needed to find a publisher.
End of summer, 1817, a publisher found. Mystery of authorship; published anonymously; not unusual in that day for women to publish anonymously. Reviewers: no one suspected a woman had written it; suspected Godwin or Shelley (technically correct: Mary was both a Godwin and a Shelley).
Claire Clairmont -- only one who expressed the significance of a woman having written it.
Chapter 8: The Anatomy Act
August 27, 1818, Alexander Love, in his late 70's walking with grandson, in Glasgow; elder was murdered by drunken thug Clydesdale, who also severely injured the grandson; Clydesdale sentenced to death by hanging and then body to dissection.
Clydesdale more afraid of dissection than death; tried to commit suicide in prison; barely saved; hung, and body to anatomists.
[1828: Edinburgh, 16 residents killed, maybe more, bodies sold to renowned anatomist Dr Robert Knox; killing people for their corpses.
One gang: Mr Burke, Mr Hare, Ms M'Dougal, Ms Hare (p. 217). Led to Anatomy Act of 1832 (p. 234).
Chapter 9: A Sea Change
Mary Shelley in Naples.
Arrived 1818; after other stays in Italy.
Mary, Percy, and Claire settled in the Chiaia district -- the most famous and desirable area of Naples. Swiss nursemaid Elise for Mary and Percy's children (plural), the ever-present Claire, and her daughter, Allegra.
Cook: Paolo Foggi.
Cook Paolo and nursemaid Elise --> a baby; the three disappear; Mary's most recent infant daughter Clara died in Venice a few months earlier.
Upon death of Clara, Percy rushes to courthouse; birth certificate for baby with his name on it and Mary's; possibly/probably Paolo/Elise's baby --> Elena Adelaide -- but in any event, the baby died June 10, 1819.
Wow -- story of New Englander/Salem, Massachusetts -- Edward Silsbee -- in 1870's learns that Claire Clairmont is still alive, living in Italy. Edward sails to Italy; strikes up relationship with Claire who is eager to tell all; his notes are in the Peabody Essex Museum. Silsbee - Claire (she very, very old) many conversations; he says Claire said she was the mother of that child by Percy; not Paolo/Elise. Mystery still to be solved.
1822: Mary -- living at Casa Magni, Italy, on Gulf of La Spezia, for the summer; she hates Casa Magni; Percy loves it.
[From Romantic Circles: On 25 April 1822, Shelley was in Pisa when he received two simultaneous pieces of news: Allegra, Claire's daughter by Byron, had died of typhus at Bagnacavallo; and Edward Williams had discovered a dilapidated but nonetheless habitable house for rent near the fishing village of Lerici, on the Gulf of Spezia. Worried about the effect of the child's death on Claire, and eager to leave Pisa (he had been involved in the attack on a Pisan dragoon resulting in Byron's banishment), Shelley decided that a change of scene was just the thing. Within a day and a half, he had seen to moving arrangements, packed Mary, Claire (who had not yet been told about Allegra) and his son Percy Florence into a coach, and was himself aboard a luggage boat for Lerici.]
June 16, 1822: a miscarriage.
The friendship between Trelawny and Shelley, Pisa, detailed.
Trelawny hires his friend Captain David Roberts to build Shelley a boat.
Byron re-enters the picture -- also living in Italy at the time (out-lived his consumption).
Shelley -- did not know how to swim. His boat, the Don Juan. Shelley asked Trelawny to get him a bottle of Prussic Acid (how Polidori committed suicide); would pay anything for highly concentrated bottle of acid.
Mary was still quite depressed.
Plan: Shelley and Williams to sail the Don Juan across the Gulf of La Spezia, located between Genoa and Pisa on the Ligurian Sea.
Trelawny to follow in Lord Byron's boat, the Bolivar. Trelawny was delayed.
Shelley and Wms decide to set out alone -- eager to return to Mary at Casa Magni on other side of the gulf.
Depart at 3:00 p.m. -- unusual for such a late departure, by anyone.
Trelawny waits frantically for Shelley/Wms.
A week later, decomposing bodies near Via Reggio.
Shelley remains to Protestant cemetery in Rome. Wms remains to England. Both cremated for health reasons. Funeral pyre at Leghorn.
Hints that a larger boat had rammed/sunk the Don Juan.
Wm Godwin learned of Shelley's death not from Mary but form his friend Leigh Hunt.
Byron much depressed.
New boat, the Hercules; much more than he could handle.
Died after horse riding, April 18, 1824.
Body to England --
Mary back to England. Mary learns of Frankenstein's success; the book has taken on a life of its own.
Still, no one knew the author.
Mary writes The Last Man, 1826, dystopian literature, set in 21st century.
Reworked and annotated Frankenstein several times -- 1821 -- several corrections to the text; a copy of that corrected copy in the Morgan Library in New York.
Most famous new edition was the 1831 edition, and most controversial one.
By 1831, her life had changed considerably -- three of her children had died; so had her husband (drowning), Lord Byron (natural causes), and Polidor (suicide). [Also Harriet -- suicide, and Fanny - suicide.]
Idealism of youth had passed.
See difference between 1818 and 1831 versions.
1818: Viktor Frankenstein decides outcome.
1831: fate decides outcome. The monster is not to blame for his actions; he is simply a puppet, not entirely to blame.
Mary was explaining her life was determined by fate; it was not her fault bad things happened to those around her. Much guilt re: Fanny, Harreit, etc.
She used 1831 book to explain how a young girl could think to write such a book.
Epilogue
The story of Alistair Cooke's cremation/dissection in 2004.
Mary died, 1851, age 53, possibly a brain tumor, at her home in Chester Square.
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