[Transcriber’s Note: This text was produced from a photo-reprint of the1818 edition.]
FRANKENSTEIN;
OR,
THE MODERN PROMETHEUS.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me man? Did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?——
Paradise Lost.
London:
PRINTED FOR
LACKINGTON, HUGHES, HARDING, MAVOR, & JONES,
FINSBURY SQUARE.
1818.
TO
WILLIAM GODWIN,
AUTHOR OF POLITICAL JUSTICE, CALEB WILLIAMS, &c.
THESE VOLUMES
Are respectfully inscribed
BY
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
The event on which this fiction is founded has been supposed, by Dr.Darwin, and some of the physiological writers of Germany, as not ofimpossible occurrence. I shall not be supposed as according the remotestdegree of serious faith to such an imagination; yet, in assuming it asthe basis of a work of fancy, I have not considered myself as merelyweaving a series of supernatural terrors. The event on which theinterest of the story depends is exempt from the disadvantages of a meretale of spectres or enchantment. It was recommended by the novelty ofthe situations which it developes; and, however impossible as a physicalfact, affords a point of view to the imagination for the delineating ofhuman passions more comprehensive and commanding than any which theordinary relations of existing events can yield.
I have thus endeavoured to preserve the truth of the elementaryprinciples of human nature, while I have not scrupled to innovateupon their combinations. The Iliad, the tragic poetry ofGreece,—Shakespeare, in the Tempest and Midsummer Night’sDream,—and most especially Milton, in Paradise Lost, conform to thisrule; and the most humble novelist, who seeks to confer or receiveamusement from his labours, may, without presumption, apply to prosefiction a licence, or rather a rule, from the adoption of which so manyexquisite combinations of human feeling have resulted in the highestspecimens of poetry.
The circumstance on which my story rests was suggested in casualconversation. It was commenced, partly as a source of amusement, andpartly as an expedient for exercising any untried resources of mind.Other motives were mingled with these, as the work proceeded. I am by nomeans indifferent to the manner in which whatever moral tendencies existin the sentiments or characters it contains shall affect the reader; yetmy chief concern in this respect has been limited to the avoiding of theenervating effects of the novels of the present day, and to theexhibitions of the amiableness of domestic affection, and the excellenceof universal virtue. The opinions which naturally spring from thecharacter and situation of the hero are by no means to be conceived asexisting always in my own conviction; nor is any inference justly to bedrawn from the following pages as prejudicing any philosophical doctrineof whatever kind.
It is a subject also of additional interest to the author, that thisstory was begun in the majestic region where the scene is principallylaid, and in society which cannot cease to be regretted. I passed thesummer of 1816 in the environs of Geneva. The season was cold and rainy,and in the evenings we crowded around a blazing wood fire, andoccasional