The
Publishers of the Standard Novels, in selecting "Frankenstein" for one
of their series, expressed a wish that I should furnish them with some
account of the origin of the story. I am the more willing to comply, because
I shall thus give a general answer to the question, so very frequently
asked me--"How I, then a young girl, came to think of, and to dilate upon,
so very hideous an idea?" It is true that I am averse to bringing myself
forward in print; but as my account will only appear as an appendage to
a former production, and as it will be confined to such topics as have
connection with my authorship alone, I can scarcely accuse myself of a
personal intrusion.
It is not singular that, as the
daughter of two persons of distinguished literary celebrity, I should very
early in life have thought of writing. As a child I scribbled; and my favourite
pastimem during the hours given me for recreation, was to "write stories."
Still I had a dearer pleasure than this, which was the formation of castles
in the air--the indulging in waking dreams--the following up trains of
thought, which had for their subject the formation of a succession of imaginary
incidents. My dreams were at once fantastic and agreeable than my writings.
In the latter I was a close imitator--rather doing as others had done,
than putting down the suggestions of my own mind. What I wrote was intended
at least for one other eye--my childhood's companion and friend; but my
dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge
when annoyed--my dearest pleasure when free.
I lived principally in the country
as a girl, and passed a considerable time in Scotland. I made occasional
visits to the more picturesque parts; but my habitual residence was on
the blank and dreary northern shores of the Tay, near Dundee. Blank and
dreary on retrospection I call them; they were not so to me then. They
were the eyry of freedom, and the pleasant region where unheeded I could
commune with the creatures of my fancy. I wrote then--but in a most common-place
style. It was beneath the trees of the grounds belonging to our house,
or on the bleak sides of the woodless mountains near, that my true compositions,
the airy flights of my imagination, were born and fostered. I did not make
myself the heroine of my tales. Life appeared to me commonplace an affair
as regarded myself. I could not figure to myself that romantic woes or
wonderful events would ever be my lot; but I was not confined to my own
identity, and I could people the hours with creations far more interesting
to me at that age, than my own sensations.
After this my life became busier,
and reality stood in place of fiction. My husband, however, was, from the
first, very anxious that I should prove myself worthy of my parentage,
and enrol myself on the page of fame. He was for ever inciting me to obtain
literary reputation, which even on my own part I cared for then, though
since I have become infinitely indifferent to it. At this time he desired
that I should write, not so much with the idea that I could produce any
thing worthy of notice, but that he might himself judge how far I possessed
the promise of better things hereafter. Still I did nothing. Travelling,
and the cares of a family, occupied my time; and study, in the way of reading,
or improving my ideas in communication with his far more cultivated mind,
was all of literary employment that engaged my attention.
In the summer of 1816, we visited
Switzerland, and became the neighbours of Lord Byron. At first we spent
our pleasant hours on the lake, or wandering on its shores; and Lord Byron,
who was writing the third canto of Childe Harold, was the only one among
us who put his thoughts upon paper. These, as he brought then successively
to us, clothed in all the light and harmony of poetry, seemed to stamp
as divine the glories of heaven and earth, whose influences we partook
with him.
But it proved a wet, ungenial
summer, and incessant rain often confined us for days to the house. Some
volumes of ghost stories, translated from the German into the French, fell
into our hands. There was the History of the Inconstant Lover, who, when
he thought to clasp the bride to whom he pledged his vows, found himself
in the arms of the pale ghost of her whom he had deserted. There was the
tale of the sinful founder of his race, whose miserable doom it was to
bestow the kiss of death on all the younger sons of his fated house, just
when they reached the age of promise. His gigantic, shadowy form, clothed
like the ghost in Hamlet, in complete armour, but with the beaver up, was
seen at midnight, by the moon's fitful beams, to advance slowly along the
gloomy avenue. The shape was lost beneath teh shadow of the castle walls;
but soon a gate swung back, a step was heard, the door of the chamber opened,
and he advanced to the couch of the blooming youths, cradled in healthy
sleep. Eternal sorrow sat upon his face as he bent down and kissed the
forehead of the boys, who from that hour withered like flowers snapt upon
the stalk. I have not seen these stories since then; but their incidents
are as fresh in my mind as if I had read them yesterday.
"We will each write a ghost story,"
said Lord Byron; and his proposition was acceded to. There were four of
us. The noble author began a tale, a fragment of which he printed at the
end of his poem Mazeppa. Shelley, more apt to embody ideas and sentiments
in the radiance of brilliant imagery, and in the music of the most melodious
verse that adorns our language, than to invert the machinery of a story,
commenced one founded on the experiences of his early life. Poor Polidori
had some terrible idea about a skull-headed lady, who was so punished for
peeping through a key-hole, what to see I forget--something very shocking
and wrong of course; but when she was reduced to a worse condition than
the renowned Tom of Coventry, he did not know what to do with her, and
was obliged to despatch her to the tomb of the Capulets, the only place
for which she was fitted. The illustrious poets, also, annoyed by the platitude
of prose, speedily relinquished their uncongenial task.
I busied myself to think of
a story,--a story to rival those which had excited us to this task.
One 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. If I did not accomplish
these things, my ghost story would be unworthy of its name. I thought and
pondered--vainly. I felt that blank incapability of invention which is
the greatest misery of authorship, when dull Nothing replies to our anxious
invocations. Have you thought of a story? I was asked each morning,
and each morning I was forced to reply with a mortifying negative.
Every thing must have a beginning,
to speak in Sanchean phrase, and that beginning msut be linked to something
that went before. The Hindoos give the world an elephant to support it,
but they make the elephant stand upon a tortoise. Invention, it must be
humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos;
the materials must, in the first place, be afforded: it can give form to
dark, shapeless substances, but cannot bring into being the substance itself.
In all matters of discovery and invention, even of those that appertain
to the imagination, we are continually reminded of the story of Columbus
and his egg. Invention consists in the capacity of seizing on the capabilities
of a subject, and in the power of moulding and fashioning ideas suggested
to it.
Many and long were the conversations
between Lord Byron and Shelley, to which I was a devout but nearly silent
listener. During one of these, various philosophical doctrines were discussed,
and among the nature of the principle of life, and whether there was any
probability of its ever being discovered and communicated. They talked
of the experiments of Dr. Darwin, (I speak not of what the Doctor really
did, or said that he did, but, as more to my purpose, of what was then
spoken of as having been done by him,) who preserved a piece of vermicelli
in a glass case, till by some extraordinary means it began to move with
voluntary motion. Not thus, after all, would life be given. Perhaps a corpse
would be re-animated; galvanism had given token of such things: perhaps
the component parts of a creature might be manufactured, brought together,
and endued with vital warmth.
Night waned upon this talk, and
even the witching hour had gone by, before we retired to rest. When I placed
my head on my pillow, I did not sleep, nor could I be said to think. My
imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me, gifting the successive
images that arose in my mind with a vividness far beyond the usual bonds
of reverie. 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.
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. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the
effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator
of the world. His success would terrify the artist; he would rush away
from his odious handywork, horror-stricken. 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. 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.
I opened mine in terror. The
idea so possessed my mind, that a thrill of fear ran through me, and I
wished to exchange the ghastly image of my fancy for the realities around.
I see them still; the very room, the dark parquet, the closed shutters,
with the moonlight struggling through, and the sense I had that the glassy
lake and white high Alps were beyond. I could not so easily get rid of
my hideous phantasm; still it haunted me. I must try to think of something
else. I recurred to my ghost story,--my tiresome unlucky ghost story! O!
if I could only contrive one which would frighten my reader as I myself
had been frightened that night!
Swift as light and as cheering
was the idea that broke in upon me. "I have found it! What terrified me
will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted
my midnight pillow." On the morrow I announced that I had thought of a
story. I began that day with the words, It was on a dreary night of November,
making only a transcript of the grim terrors of my waking
dream.
At first I thought but of a few
pages--of a short tale; but Shelley urged me to develope the idea at greater
length. I certainly did not owe the suggestion of one incident, nor scarcely
of one train of feeling, to my husband, and yet but for his incitement,
it would never have taken the form which it was presented to the world.
From this declaration I must except the preface. As far as I can recollect,
it was entirely written by him.
And now, once again, I bid my
hideous progeny go forth and prosper. I have an affection for it, for it
was the offspring of happy days, when death and grief were but words, which
found no true echo on my heart. Its several pages speak of many a walk,
many a drive, and many a conversation, when I was not alone; and my companion
was one who, in this world, I shall never see more. But this is for myself;
my readers have nothing to do with these associations.
I will but add one word as to
the alterations I have made. They are principally those of style. I have
changed no portion of the story, nor introduced any new ideas or circumstances.
I have mended the language where it was so bald as to interfere with the
interest of the narrative; and these changes occur almost exclusively in
the beginning of the first volume. Throughout they are entirely confined
to such parts as are mere adjuncts to the story, leaving the core and substance
of it untouched.
M.W.S.
London, October 15, 1831.
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