While I watched the various Hollywood incarnations of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (be they the original with Boris Karloff, the spoofs with Abbott & Costello, etc.), I didn’t read her actual novel until university. In a horror films class, of course. I remember not really enjoying the book, thinking that the movie was so much better.

Thankfully, I revisited the novel once I was older. By then, I knew more about her, her life, and the Romantic era. I love epistolary novels, but the beauty of this work is that there is no monster, only The Creature and its creator, Frankenstein. The Creature taught itself to read by finding three books, Milton’s Paradise Lose, Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther, and one volume of Plutarch’s Lives. Wow, talk about heavy hitting philosophical treatise on life and meaning. The novel is sewn through with thoughts on life, death, meaning of life, existence, love and being an outsider, shunned for who you are. This novel continues to resonate with me at each stage of my life and journey.

An interesting study on the novel was done by Charles Robinson, in his book “The Original Frankenstein”. He worked with an early draft held at the Bodleian Library. An amazing look at how the novel originally was structured. It flowed better and was a faster read. Worth checking out if you are interested in the history of this novel.