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Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus, is a novel written by Mary Shelley. Shelley started writing when she was 18 and the novel was published when she was 21. The first edition was published anonymously in London in 1818. Shelley's name appears on the second edition, published in 1831. The title of the novel refers to a scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who learns how to create life and creates a being in the likeness of man, but larger than average and more powerful. In popular culture, people have tended incorrectly to refer to the monster as "Frankenstein".
Frankenstein is infused with some elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic Movement. It was also a warning against the expansion of modern man in the Industrial Revolution, alluded to in the novel's subtitle, The Modern Prometheus. The story has had an influence across literature and popular culture and spawned a complete genre of horror stories and films. It is often considered the first fully realized science fiction novel due to its pointed, if gruesome, focus on playing God by creating life from dead flesh. |
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Mary Shelley (Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin, and her mother was the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. In 1816, the couple famously spent a summer with Lord Byron, John William Polidori, and Claire Clairmont near Geneva, Switzerland, where Mary conceived the idea for her novel Frankenstein. The Shelleys left Britain in 1818 for Italy, where their second and third children died before Mary Shelley gave birth to her last and only surviving child, Percy Florence. In 1822, her husband drowned when his sailing boat sank during a storm in the Bay of La Spezia. A year later, Mary Shelley returned to England and from then on devoted herself to the upbringing of her son and a career as a professional author. The last decade of her life was dogged by illness, probably caused by the brain tumor that was to kill her at the age of 53.
Burg Frankenstein is a hilltop castle about 5 km south of Darmstadt in Germany. As the name suggests, some believe the castle and its folklore have been influential upon Mary Shelley, though this theory lacks evidence. The castle was built before 1250 by Konrad Reiz von Breuberg, who made it into a territory subject only to the Emperor and henceforth adopted the family name Frankenstein. In 1292 Count William II of Katzenelnbogen forced to open the castle. Although it was at one time a sizeable fortress, today only two towers and a chapel remain. Because of territorial and religious disputes between the Catholic Frankensteins and the Lutheran landgraves of Hesse-Darmstadt, the family in 1662 eventually sold their possessions around the castle to the landgraves and retired to their possessions in the Wetterau. The German alchemist and natural philosopher Johann Conrad Dippel (1673-1734) was born and lived at Castle Frankenstein. He is known to have sometimes added 'Frankensteinensis' to his signature, indicating his birth place, not any relation to the Frankenstein family. The folklore of the region accuses him of body snatching, a crime not unknown amongst anatomists, and claims that he attempted to bring the dead to life, though how much these stories have been retro-actively influenced by the Frankenstein myths is hard to say. None of these legends can be proven to exist before Shelley's novel was released. Some are even anachronistic, such as the claim that Dippel was experimenting with Nitroglycerin. Nitroglycerin had not yet been discovered in Dippel's time.
The Shelleys were known to have
travelled through the region on their way to visit Lord Byron in Geneva, where
Mary Shelley would create her Magnum opus during a scary story telling session
on a stormy night. Some believe that she must have visited the castle and heard
the local folklore, but she actually passed by the castle at night and therefore
would not have been able to see it. That the castle or Dippel influenced Shelley
is speculation. There's no historical evidence that Shelley even knew of the
historical nature of the castle or Dippel's activities.
Dippel was a German pietist theologian, alchemist and physician. He was born at Castle Frankenstein near Darmstadt, and therefore once (at his school) the addendum Franckensteinensis and once (at his university) the addendum Franckensteina-Strataemontanus was used. He studied theology, philosophy and alchemy at the University of Giessen, obtaining a master's degree in theology in 1693. He published many theological works under the name Christianus Democritus, and most of them are still preserved. From 1700-1702 he engaged in a bitter dispute with the Reformed Court Preacher Conrad Broeske in Offenbach, with whom he shared millenarian hopes for soon-coming renewal in Christendom. He accused Broeske of compromise and collusion with the authorities after Broeske refused to publish Dippel's "The Scourging Papacy of the Protestants" on the Offenbach press. Dippel led an adventurous life, often getting into trouble because of his disputed opinions and his problems with managing money. At one point he was imprisoned for heresy. He created an animal oil known as Dippel's Oil which was supposed to be the equivalent to the alchemists' dream of the "elixir of life." In 1704 in Berlin, he and the manufacturer Heinrich Diesbach used this oil instead of potassium carbonate in producing red dyes. To their surprise, they obtained a blue dye "Berliner Blau", also called "Preussisch Blau" or "Prussian blue". Together they founded a factory in Paris. According to Stahl, he and the pigment maker Diesbach used potassium carbonate contaminated with this oil in producing red dyes. To their surprise, they obtained a blue pigment "Berliner Blau", also called "Preussisch Blau" or "Prussian blue". There are claims that during his stay at Castle Frankenstein, he practiced alchemy and anatomy. He was allegedly working with nitroglycerin, which led to the destruction of a tower at the Castle Frankenstein. But this seems to be a modern myth, for it is an anachronism. Nitroglycerin hadn't been discovered in Dippel's time. And although the history of the castle during Dippel's lifetime is well documented, the destruction of a tower - though surely a remarkable event - is nowhere mentioned. Other rumors about Dippel appear to be modern inventions too. For example, that which said that he performed gruesome experiments with cadavers, attempting to transfer the soul of one cadaver into another. There is also no evidence to the rumor that he was driven out of town, when word of his activities reached the ears of the townspeople. He died at Wittgenstein Castle near Bad Laasphe, probably from a stroke, though some contemporaries suspected poisoning. |
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