January 20, 2009
Frankenstein
Written by Mary Shelley
“All my speculations and hopes are as nothing, and like the archangel who aspired to omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell.”
—Chapter 24, pg. 201
Fun Facts
- Shelley started writing Frankenstein when she was eighteen and finished when she was nineteen.
- The first edition was published anonymously in London in 1818. It was turned down by two publishers — John Murray and Ollier, before being accepted by Lakington, Allen and Co.
- Mary Shelley’s life had many tragic elements including her mother’s death while giving birth to the author, her half-sister committing suicide, and her husband’s drowning in 1822.
- Shelley and the other romantics admired Milton’s character of Satan, seeing him as the hero of Paradise Lost. In many ways, the creature echoes Satan’s resentment when he states, “I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.”
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