Category Archives: Frankenstein Writing

Frankenstein Published 200 Years Ago Today

200th Anniversary of a Literary Legend

Its first appearance was hardly a monster, though it still remains one of the most famous works of fiction ever published. “Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus” made its first appearance on the bookshelves of the Lackington Book Emporium on January 1, 1818. The book was published by the London firm of Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor and & Jones. The publishing house changed partners over time, so assorted names sometimes appear, but Lackington’s book emporium, “The Temple of the Muses” on Finsbury Square was London’s largest bookstore.

Five hundred copies had been printed and the book issue had been supported by advertisements in the London broadsheets. The first printing was in three volumes. It did not sell as hoped and was soon offered with a discount and much of the printing run remained unsold.

The name of the author did not appear on the cover, but rumor had it that it was by Percy Bysshe Shelley, though many in the literary community were aware or had suspicion that it was a work by his wife, Mary Shelley. The Shelleys’ friends had known that Mary was writing a book, but Shelley had asked them not to tell the publishers as he was submitting it for consideration.

A great deal has been made of the anonymous publishing of Frankenstein, but it was not at all uncommon at the time for books to be published anonymously. Most of Percy’s own early public works had been published without his name, though many knew who had authored them. Was it a fear of the reaction to a woman authoring such a dark and challenging work, or the fear of reputation, that prevented listing the author? The Shelleys had already been the subject of scandal for three and half years since their elopement in 1814. Perhaps it was the intention to wait for reaction to the book before stepping from behind the curtain, with the fear that critics would take the easy opportunity to attack the author rather than judge the work on its merits.

The book did not sell as hoped. Critical reaction was mixed. Mary Shelley had received no advance for the book, and was to receive a share of the profits after the deduction of expenses. There was a dispute with Lackington over the amount of advertising for the release. Shelley blamed the poor sales on the advertisements appearing too late to support the publication date. Lackington agreed to re-launch the book in three months, with sufficient time for the advertising. The relaunch would be on March 11, 1818, which was considered the official publication date, the day before Percy and Mary Shelley would leave England for Italy. Percy would never return.

The author’s name as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley would not appear on the cover until 1823, on the single volume edition, published by G. and W. B. Whittaker. Mary’s authorship was well known by this time as the story had achieved a great notoriety, mostly through the story performed as an unauthorized stage play which was hugely popular. The first printed edition of the book to recognize Mary Shelley as the author would be on a French translation, as simply “Mme. Shelley” in 1821.

Critical Reception

Even without her name on it, it was no real secret that Mary Shelley was the author. Reviews appeared with reference to her. The Literary Panorama and National Register attacked the novel as a “feeble imitation of Mr. Godwin’s novels…produced by the daughter of a celebrated living novelist”. And perhaps as evidence to the feared reaction if Mary Shelley had been publicly named, another commented, “The writer of it is, we understand, a female; this is an aggravation of that which is the prevailing fault of the novel; but if our authoress can forget the gentleness of her sex, it is no reason why we should; and we shall therefore dismiss the novel without further comment.” Sir Walter Scott, who knew Percy Shelley and shared his usual publisher was kinder “upon the whole, the work impresses us with a high idea of the author’s original genius and happy power of expression”, though there is a suggestion that he was under the impression that Shelley was the author, while the Quarterly Review described it as “a tissue of horrible and disgusting absurdity”.

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Do Robots Get Lawyers?

What Rights for Artificial Intelligence Persons?

c3po_ticketDid Mary Shelley see the future we couldn’t? For 200 years, the speculative novel by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley seemed to pose for science fiction the futurist dilemma of could a living being be created from parts of the dead. But as the two century anniversary of its publishing is upon us, it is the philosophical content of the story that is more prescient in its existential quandary. What rights does the creation have over the creator?

Futurist thinkers like Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates and Elon Musk have warned about the risks to humankind posed by uncontrolled Artificial Intelligence. Movies like Terminator, I, Robot and 2001: A Space Odyssey, have posed visions what a future of self-aware digital intelligent beings might be like for humans. We have already given control of our houses heating and cooling and alarms to computers and will soon hand over the steering wheels of our cars to robots. A lot of these stories ask the question of what if the machines we create become a danger to us. But what if the machines we create ask ‘what if we are a danger to them’?

The European Parliament Committee on Legal Affairs recently released a report with recommendations to the Commission on Civil Law Rules on Robotics on the subject of humankind’s entry into the world of advanced robotics and implementations of artificial intelligence. The premise behind the report is that with the rapid advance of the uses autonomous vehicles and other devices, where does liability and responsibility lie. If there is risk, danger or damage, who is held liable, but in this is posed the next question, what rights will AI beings have?

Can your Roomba complain if you abuse it? When does a machine become more than a machine in a legal context? Soon, artificially intelligent machines will be designed and built by other artificially intelligent machines, and when do they cease to be machines, but “beings”, a separate “race” subject to the laws which govern the interaction of beings. When does an artificial intelligence application APP become an Artificial Intelligent Person AIP?

The EU report doesn’t go quite this far, but it begins with a reference to Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus”.

Introduction

  1.   whereas from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein’s Monster to the classical myth of Pygmalion, through the story of Prague’s Golem to the robot of Karel Čapek, who coined the word, people have fantasized about the possibility of building intelligent machines, more often than not androids with human features;
  2.   whereas now that humankind stands on the threshold of an era when ever more sophisticated robots, bots, androids and other manifestations of artificial intelligence (“AI”) seem to be poised to unleash a new industrial revolution, which is likely to leave no stratum of society untouched, it is vitally important for the legislature to consider its legal and ethical implications and effects, without stifling innovation;
  3. whereas there is a need to create a generally accepted definition of robot and AI that is flexible and is not hindering innovation;

In Frankenstein, the creature confronts Victor with his own desire for a race of beings like himself, “create a female for me with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being.” In Frankenstein, the creature and his creator head off into the frozen north away from society, but implicit in the story is what is the responsibility of the creator to his creation, and the danger if the creation is more powerful and intent on its own needs over that of his creator. Here is the question of the death of God in the human mind, and the future humankind faces when the machines we create to make our lives easier become aware of their own needs over their creators.

The EU report is not exactly about the questions of the rights of artificial life, but forming a legal framework for human liability in building intelligent machines. If my drone kills your drone, who pays? But as in the debate over whether corporations have human rights, like political opinions and free speech, we will very soon be confronted with the question, does a silicon based algorithmic self-aware machine have the same rights as a carbon based biological being. And who will have the right to decide?

If anarchy is freedom without the force of law, and order is imposed by those who can enforce their vision of society, who will enforce the order of the AI future? Humans claim superiority and dominion because we speak to a God, free to make war and to slaughter and eat other corporal beings because we can contemplate what movie we want to go to, or whether we want dressing on our salad, and they can’t. But if the smart machines we build, like the creature of Mary Shelley’s waking dream, demand their own position of superiority and dominion based on the power of logic, how do we answer?

Thanks to Gary Goodwin and Canadian Lawyer Magazine article and EU Committee on Legal Affairs report.

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August 1817 – Frankenstein Rejected!

history_six_weeks_cover_fdThe Six Weeks Tour Begins

200 years ago in August of 1871 Percy Bysshe Shelley was submitting Frankenstein to publishers and Mary began working on her diary of the 1814 elopement – The History of the Six Weeks Tour.

On August 3rd 1817 Percy Shelley wrote to his publisher Charles Ollier from Marlow to ask him to publish Frankenstein.

“I send you with this letter a manuscript which has been consigned to my care by a friend in whom I feel considerable interest.  I do not know how far it consists with your plan of business to purchase the copyrights, or a certain interest in the copyrights of any works which should appear to promise success. I should certainly prefer that some such arrangement as this should be made if on consideration you could make any offer which I should feel justified to my friend in accepting. How far that can be you will be the better able to judge after a perusal of the MS. Perhaps you will do me the favour of communicating your decision to me as early as you conveniently can.”

Shelley also wrote on that day to his friend Leigh Hunt, who might be seeing Ollier to inform him not to mention that the book Hunt knew was written by his wife.

 “Bye-the-bye, I have sent an MS to Ollier concerning the true author of which I entreat you to be silent, if you should be asked any questions.”

Ollier apparently very quickly rejected the manuscript. Shelley possibly asked him for fast response.  Just 3 days later on August 6th 1817 Shelley added a postscript to a letter Mary wrote to Marianne Hunt from Marlow.

 “Poor Mary’s book came back with a refusal, which has put me rather in ill spirits. Does any kind friend of yours Marianne know any bookseller or has any influence with one? Any of those good tempered Robinsons? All these things are affairs of interest & preconception”

On August 8 Shelley ended a letter to Ollier with a remark about the book.

“I hope Frankenstein did not give you bad dreams.”

Mary’s diary in Marlow indicated that she had gone on to the writing of her journal of the 1814 trip into the first part of the History of a Six Weeks’ Tour with entries between August 6 to August 17, “write the journal of our travels” and “write journal of our first travels”.

On August 9 Mary’s half-brother Charles Clairmont wrote to Mary from France.

“You say nothing more of your novel. Do not neglect it on any account, and send me one of the first copies.”

On August 24 Mary made an entry in her diary at Marlow “A letter from Lackington” which apparently referred to a letter Shelley answered on August 22. Lackington’s interest in the novel may have been because they were then publishing other books on the occult and alchemy and felt Frankenstein might fit in the catalogue.

Publisher friend Thomas Hookham visited the Shelleys in Marlow from August 24 to 29 when he likely had a chance to read the Six Weeks Tour draft and apparently looked favorably on publishing, though he may have wanted to wait for the second half which would include the writings in letters of Percy Shelley from the 1816 Chamonix trip appended to it, probably to make it more marketable rather than just the hand of then unpublished Mary. Mary inquired about prospects for the book on September 28 in anticipation of its release. Hookham and Charles & James Ollier jointly published the History of the Six Weeks Tour on November 6, 1817 as Mary Shelley’s first published work.

Mary would revise it 31 years later in October of 1848, but the revisions would not published for another 200 years as the Secret Memoirs.

Secret Memoirs of Mary Shelley  – E-Book

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Frankenstein Looks For a Publisher – 1817

The Secret Identity of Authorship in the First Publication

frankenstein_cover_1818
Mary Shelley had completed the first draft of her novel, to be called “Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus” by the end of May in 1817, and commencing in June, Percy Shelley began to submit it to publishers for her. He offered it without acknowledging the identity of the author, in some cases saying only that it was a friend who was out of the country.

Why did he Shelley not want to reveal that the author of this book was his wife? This is perhaps a curious matter of speculation. Shelley himself was no stranger to anonymous authorship. Much of his early work had been published without his name, using various non-pseudonyms, like, “A Gentleman of Oxford” or “The Hermit of Marlow”, only thinly disguising his credit. Was he afraid of nepotism, that he thought the work would be disregarded if it was his 20 year old wife he was representing? Was he worried about the reception of a literary work by a woman author? Was it the subject matter?

There were other women authors. By 1817, Jane Austen had received wide acclaim for her popular fiction, but Austen’s work was far more what was expected of a feminine author than the dark horrors and philosophical questions of Frankenstein. Would the shock be easier to take if it attained success first? Mary Shelley was the daughter of a known woman writer, but Mary Wollstonecraft’s reputation was still clouded in the scandal produced by William Godwin’s biography revealing her love affairs. Would her daughter be tainted by the connection? Or was it the scandal of their own relationship which had dogged them for three years since their elopement that worried him. He had even urged his friend Leigh Hunt to remain silent in what he knew.

Some of these concerns over revealing the identity of the author seemed to be born out in some of the critical reception once rumors of the anonymous author’s sex spread, The British Critic wrote “The writer of it is, we understand, a female; this is an aggravation of that which is the prevailing fault of the novel…and we shall therefore dismiss the novel without further comment.” While knowledge of her literary lineage produced the comment by The Literary Panorama that the novel was a “feeble imitation of Mr. Godwin’s novels” referencing that she was the daughter of a “celebrated living novelist”. Sir Walter Scott offered a favorable review “an extraordinary tale, in which the author seems to us to disclose uncommon powers of poetic imagination …. written in plain and forcible English…” although Scott had assumed it was written by Shelley who had sent him the copy. Mary herself had even worried that a work written by one as young as she was at the time, might receive criticism for that alone.

Frankenstein Authorship Controversy – Did Mary Shelley Write Frankenstein?

The authorship identity mystery surrounding the publishing of Frankenstein was also the origin of conspiracy speculation and controversy surrounding whether Mary Shelley was the author of Frankenstein at all. Assorted discussions have arisen over 200 years of how much contribution Percy Shelley made to the book. Some have even gone so far to suggest that Mary was only “drafting fair copies” of Shelley’s work. But at the time of the creation of the novel, Shelley was working on his own writing, producing a political pamphlet and epic poem, as well as constantly on the move, dodging creditors, fighting for custody of his children, overseeing the publishing of Byron’s work and searching for a place for them to live, to have the time to contribute much.

The ideas in Frankenstein that are often cited as evidence of Percy Shelley’s contribution come from Mary’s deep connection to the philosophical discussions and habits of her husband. She was surely influenced by his interests and inspired by him. The record of her own research can be found in her diaries. Since their first meeting and through their elopement Shelley would introduce her to his reading and his ideas. It is often suggested from the story of that summer in Geneva, that Mary was inspired by one fireside discussion between Bryon and Shelley, but she had been introduced to the themes that appear in Frankenstein long before. Indeed, many of Percy Shelley’s philosophies were introduced to him by Mary’s father, William Godwin, and the circle of writers and thinkers he knew, like Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Charles Lamb.

Finding a Publisher  

The first known submission of the manuscript of Frankenstein was to John Murray. Shelley was in regular correspondence with Murray who was publishing Lord Byron’s “Third Canto of Childe Harold: Third Canto”. Murray declined the work. Perhaps Shelley had revealed to Murray that it was Mary who was the author. Mary was well known to Murray, both through her father and the close relationship between the Shelleys and Byron. He may have even been aware when she was writing it. Shelley next took the manuscript to Charles Ollier who was publishing his own poem “Laon and Cythna” written while in Marlow. Ollier also passed on it. Thomas Hookham had agreed to publish Mary’s History of a Six Weeks Tour Journal with her name as author, but may not have wanted to cloud the issue with two books, or may have believed it not a genre fitting his taste.

Shelley began to look for publishers whom he did not know. After a dinner discussion with magazine publisher on a visit with friends the Leigh Hunts, Shelley asked in a letter if Marianne Hunt might know of a publisher to approach. It was in August of 1817, that Shelley finally submitted the book to a publisher, Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor and & Jones. Whether this was a result of a suggestion by Marianne Hunt is unknown, but Lackington was a well known book seller of inexpensive books for the broad public through their book emporium, a fixture in London. Since the “unknown author” was new, Shelley proposed that instead of an advance, the author would only take a 1/3 share of the profits from the sales after deduction of expenses. Lackington agreed to publish the book with 500 copies, “Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus – In Three Volumes” with no author listed.

Mary began revisions, which would be transmitted at first through Shelley to the publisher, then Mary allowed Shelley “carte blanche” to make any revisions necessary. He most likely added the passage of a letter in the first chapter to smooth out what Mary considered an  “abruptness”. Shelley also made some alterations to smooth out the writing style in some sections and spelling. The preparation would take three months, until November of 1817. The printing of the book was done by Robert MacDonald & Son. There were disputes with Lackington over advertisements surrounding the publishing.

First Publication of Frankenstein

The book first appeared on January 1 of 1818. The publication date was supposed to be December 29 of 1817, but was delayed. The press announcements referred to it as “A Work of Imagination” with a price of 16 Shillings and Sixpence. The publishing was largely unsuccessful as a financial adventure, and critical response could be described as mixed, but the story itself created a popular sensation, with unauthorized stage versions soon appearing, while its author was already gone away to Italy.

The author’s identity would first appear on a French translation in 1821, as only Mme. Shelley. The Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley name would first appear as the author on the 1823 Edition, published by G. and W. B. Whittaker, supervised by her father following Mary’s return to England after Shelley’s death, and suddenly finding herself famous from her story adapted to a hit stage play. The best known version of the book would be published by Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley in 1831, with the now well-known, but perhaps artfully apocryphal story of the literary competition at Villa Diodati.

Secret Memoirs of Mary Shelley  – E-Book

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The Shelleys Move to Marlow – Frankenstein Completed

Shelley Cottage Great Marlow in BuckinghamshireFinally married after two and half years of pretending not to be living together, Mary and Percy Shelley packed up their temporary lodgings in Bath on February 27, 1817 and moved to what they intended as a permanent residence in Marlow-on-Thames, in Buckinghamshire, found for them by Thomas Love Peacock. They would stay with Peacock for three weeks while Shelley was still traveling to London to attend the Chancery Court fighting with his now dead wife Harriet’s family, the Westbrooks, for the disposition of his children.

They moved into the Albion House on March 18, 1817 which Shelley described before moving in as “a house among woody hills…green fields and this delightful river.” But afterward found to be rather drafty and cold from its proximity to the river, a short distance away. Mary was pregnant again and working on the second notebook volume of Frankenstein.

On March 27, 1817 Shelley would finally be denied the custody of his children, Ianthe and Charles, by the Chancery Court and they would be given to the care of the clergyman in Warwick who had been seeing to them since Harriet’s drowning. The Westbrooks had been threatening Shelley with jail through much of this fight, and it was finally over, or so they thought, with an amount settled for their care.

shelley_albion_house_marlowDespite Mary’s wish that they could, at last, be alone without the constant presence of her stepsister, Clare moved with them. Shelley was still calling her alternately Clare, Claire, or Clara, sometimes in the same letter and Mary complained of her capriciousness. They had engaged a nurse for her newborn infant daughter by Byron, Alba, born in early January. Mary and Percy’s son, William, had just celebrated his first birthday on January 24, and Mary was pregnant again. The house was large enough to accommodate the Shelleys, Clare, their children, servants and visiting guests. The Leigh Hunts came often to stay.

The time in Marlow would be both auspicious and troubled. Mary would complete her novel in a burst of work, writing about 5 pages a day, while muddling through another difficult pregnancy and Shelley would be gone much of the time, trying to manage his debts, his own and the Godwins’.

Shelley had written a pamphlet “A Proposal for Putting Reform to the Vote” by the “Hermit of Marlow”, published by Charles and John Ollier, sending proof copies to a list of influential opinion makers while Mary completed the original copy draft of her own novel by May of 1817.

Shelley also completed his poem of “Laon and Cythna; or, The Revolution of the Golden City”, written, according to Mary, while on his long walks in the woods, especially on his walks up river to Medmenham Abbey, and while sitting in a boat under the Beech groves of Bisham. He finished it in September of 1817 after six months of working on it. On cold days, Shelley could be seen around Marlow in a brown lamb’s wool collar coat and cuffs, and in summer wearing an open-necked shirt. The poem, though disguised as classic reference, was much inspired by his life with Mary in Marlow, and essentially a love letter to her. Their second child, a daughter they named Clara, was born on September 2, 1817, and clearly affected the poem. It also contained a reference to a finished “toil”. Was he referring to her work on Frankenstein, celebrating its completion, or to their new born daughter?

So now my summer-task is ended, Mary,
And I return to thee, mine own heart’s home;
As to his Queen some victor Knight of Faëry,
Earning bright spoils for her enchanted dome;
Nor thou disdain, that ere my fame become
A star among the stars of mortal night,
If it indeed may cleave its natal gloom,
Its doubtful promise thus I would unite
With thy beloved name, thou Child of love and light.

The toil which stole from thee so many an hour
  Is ended,—and the fruit is at thy feet!
No longer where the woods to frame a bower
With interlaced branches mix and meet,
Or where with sound like many voices sweet,
Water-falls leap among wild islands green,
Which framed for my lone boat a lone retreat
Of moss-grown trees and weeds, shall I be seen:
But beside thee, where still my heart has ever been.

The poem subtly referenced both their relationship meeting in 1814 and surviving the struggles of their lives in scandal and the turning away of friends in the previous two years, but with a renewed peace.

No more alone through the world’s wilderness,
Although I trod the paths of high intent,
I journeyed now: no more companionless,
Where solitude is like despair, I went. –
There is the wisdom of a stern content
When Poverty can blight the just and good,
When Infamy dares mock the innocent,
And cherished friends turn with the multitude
       To trample: this was ours, and we unshaken stood!

Now has descended a serener hour,
   And with inconstant fortune, friends return;
Though suffering leaves the knowledge and the power
Which says:—Let scorn be not repaid with scorn.
And from thy side two gentle babes are born
   To fill our home with smiles, and thus are we
Most fortunate beneath life’s beaming morn;
And these delights, and thou, have been to me
The parents of the Song I consecrate to thee.

While tending to his own publishing, Shelley also submitted Mary’s novel to publishers. He did not say who the author was, but only referenced as “a friend”. He was purposely being secretive about its true authorship, urging his friend Leigh Hunt to “remain silent”, and even responding to a request for some changes that the author was indeed “not in the country” and Shelley offered to make corrections to language. The manuscript was first submitted to John Murray II, who was publishing Byron’s “Childe Harold”, being overseen by Shelley, and then to Charles Ollier, who was publishing Shelley’s own work, but both declined to publish the disturbing story. It was a disappointment. Why he apparently didn’t offer it to Thomas Hookham is unclear, but Hookham was quite busy. Thomas Love Peacock’s own novel “Melincourt” was published by Hookham at this time, and Hookham would also be publishing Mary’s first credited work, The Six Weeks Tour. Maybe it would be too close for comfort.

Shelley wrote to Leigh Hunt’s wife Marianne for suggestions of other publishers. Finally in August of 1817, Shelley submitted the book to Lackington, Allen and Co., offering a deal for a new unknown author that, rather than a payment advance for the copyright, the publishers would risk the printing and advertising cost, and after deductions of the expense from sales would split the profits with the author. Lackington agreed to publish the work under the title “Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus” with the author anonymous. The publishing preparation would take about three months, during which time Mary would visit London and Skinner Street, to see her father. Her stepmother was away in France at the time which allowed them to be alone.

In the meantime, Mary compiled and edited her diaries of their elopement trip of 1814, including some of Shelley’s material from their time in Geneva and the poem “Mont Blanc”, and would see it published by Thomas Hookham under her own name in December of 1817 as “History of a Six Weeks Tour: A Part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland with Letters Descriptive of a Sail Round the Lake of Geneva, and of the Glaciers of Chamouni”.

During this time, the mysterious fatherhood of Clare Clairmont’s daughter, Alba (sometimes Auburn and later Allegra), began to grow into a threatening scandal. Clare had called herself Mrs. Clairmont in Bath, but her ambitions lead her to not want to pretend to be married. Lurid speculations of what was going on in the Albion household built with suspicions that Alba may have been the product of Shelley and Clare. Mary’s childhood friend Isabel Baxter, would publicly separate from Mary after marrying a rather too proper schoolmaster and brewer, Mr. David Booth, even with an endorsement of Shelley by her father after a visit to Marlow.

Shelley’s health had begun to feel the toll of the dampness of autumn and winter, and he proposed a trip to Italy on advice of his London physician and to take Byron’s daughter to her father. In the last few months of 1817, Shelley was staying much away from Marlow as creditors of his dead wife, Harriet, had come out of the woodwork and were trying to collect on unsuspected debts.  Although they had leased the Albion House in Marlow for 21 years, they sold the lease, packed and departed for London on February 10, 1818. They would depart for Italy on March 12, 1818, almost exactly a year after settling in at Marlow.

Secret Memoirs of Mary Shelley  – E-Book

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Sir Humphry Davy – Frankenstein’s Father?

Is Sir Humphry Davy the real father of Frankenstein?

Sir Humphry Davy PortraitDecember 17 marks the birthday in 1778 of Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet and President of the Royal Society, and October 28 may mark the 200th anniversary of Frankenstein’s scientific birth in 1816. Sir Humphry Davy was a chemist and inventor from Cornwall who is most noted today as the originator of the scientific field of electrochemistry and for isolating several elements of the periodic table, calcium, strontium, barium, magnesium and boron. Thomas Edison is credited with inventing the commercial incandescent light bulb, but it was Davy who in 1802 first demonstrated the principle of passing electric current from a battery through metal to create a light source. The first demonstration using platinum was very short and impractical. In 1806 he used two rods of carbon passing electricity across the gap to create the first arc light.

Humphry Davy developed the concepts of Alessandro Volta, to create the most powerful electrical battery in the world at the Royal Institution. With it, he created the first incandescent light by passing electric current through a thin strip of platinum, chosen because the metal had an extremely high melting point. It was neither sufficiently bright nor long lasting enough to be of practical use, but demonstrated the principle. By 1806, he was able to demonstrate a much more powerful form of electric lighting to the Royal Society in London. It was an early form of arc light which produced its illumination from an electric arc created between two charcoal rods.

voltaic_pile_batteryDavy had a close working friendship with James Watt, the inventor of the practical steam engine from whom we get the word for power, wattage. Davy was also an amateur poet and friends with Samuel Taylor Coleridge and England’s Poet Laureate, Robert Southey. Davy and Watt were the creators of Nitrous Oxide “Laughing Gas”, first thinking it might be a cure for a hangover, but then envisioning its use as an anesthetic for surgical procedures. The gas became popular among the romantic poets for its more hallucinogenic properties.

As early as 1801, Davy began giving a series of lectures on the concept of “Galvanism”, inspired by the experiments of Luigi Galvani, passing electricity through muscle tissue to create a reaction and the application of electrical current to create a chemical reaction. Davy’s lectures with his spectacular demonstrations were a sensation in England, bringing the Italian scientist’s work into popular familiarity. Davy later used the Voltaic Pile battery to separate and produce elements becoming the basis for his most noted work.

davy_royal_societySo what does Davy have to do with the birth of Frankenstein? Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a familiar participant to the company of the intellectual discussions of William Godwin and his circle of philosophers and poets. Mary Shelley was introduced at a youthful age to the theories of electrochemistry and Galvanism. It was Coleridge who told of experiments he witnessed using Galvani’s theories on executed prisoners at Newgate Prison. Percy Shelley was an enthusiastic acolyte to the use of batteries and electricity. In his days at Oxford as a reaction to bullying he created a hand-cranked battery to shock entrants to his room who would touch the doorknob. He passed his enthusiasm for the ideas of Davy, proposing that giant farms of electric batteries would power utopian cities of the future, onto Mary in their early courtship. It was likely these concepts which initially excited Mary’s imagination to the possibility bringing to life to the dead. While formulating the first chapters of Frankenstein while residing in Bath, Mary reread and referred to Sir Humphry Davy’s reference work on chemistry.

On October 28, 1816, Mary recorded in her diary “Read the Introduction to Sir H. Davy’s Chemistry–write” while in Bath. The “write” refers to the first chapters of her work on her novel, which she had begun seriously on her return from Geneva. She mentioned Davy for her reference in her journals up through November 4 of 1816, delving for a week to write about chemistry and its relation to what she called Natural Philosophy in the chapters 2 and 4 of her notebook drafts.

In later lectures, after the book of Frankenstein was first published, Davy was approached by a young woman asking him if the theory of bringing the reconstructed dead back to life was possible. What his reply was is not recorded but he was apparently sufficiently familiar with the work to feel bemused that the theory which animated Mary Shelley’s fictional creature may have come from him.

frankie_plain_palaisDavy’s other connection to Frankenstein may be only coincidental, though perhaps a bit more than that. In his later life, Sir Humphry Davy left England and traveled, eventually settling in Geneva, Switzerland, spending his later days a short distance from the Villa Diodati, and strolling the lake shores haunted by Mary Shelley’s creation in her novel. Sir Humphry Davy is buried in the cemetery of Geneva’s PlainPalais, where the murder of Victor Frankenstein’s son took place and just a few steps from where the modern statue of “Frankie” commemorating the Geneva connection to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein still stalks, looking for a reconnection to the scientific father who turned from him.

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Mary Shelley in Bath – Frankenstein Begins

Tragedy, Turmoil and Creativity for the Shelleys in Bath

5 Abbey Churchyard Bath

Shelley’s 5 Abbey Churchyard

The city of Bath makes a great deal of fuss about its place in the life of Regency author Jane Austen. There’s an Austen Centre, exhibits and annual celebrations, tour marketing and the like. Austen lived in Bath for nine years from 1800 to 1809, but her time in Bath was not especially significant in her own literary history. She wrote the drafts of her completed novels before moving there, and she was not published until after she had left. While for the longest time, the city barely acknowledged its place in the life of Austen’s contemporary author, Mary Shelley, who developed and wrote a significant portion of her greatest work while a resident there. A museum for the author of Frankenstein is now in the planning stage.

Though only a fairly brief five months, the time spent in Bath by Mary Godwin, Percy Shelley and Clare Clairmont in 1816 were some of the most tumultuous and eventful in their story and in the formulation of Mary’s novel of Frankenstein. Within this few months, a birth and two suicides would deeply affect them, and by the time they left, Mary Godwin would be Mrs. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.

After departing the company of Byron in Geneva, the Shelley party, Shelley, Mary, Clare, the Shelleys’ two-year-old son, William, and a nurse, Elise Duvillard, hired in Switzerland, returned back to England. They travelled through France on a different route than they had taken in 1814, passing through Dijon, Auxerre, and Villeneuve, while stopping for brief tourist visits at the palaces of Fontainebleau and Versailles, and to Rouen for the Cathedral. They sailed from Le Havre to Portsmouth on the 8th of September, 1816.

Bath Then and NowFrom Portsmouth, Shelley separated from the two sisters to see his friend, Thomas Peacock, in Great Marlow, while Mary and Clare went to Bath. Clare’s pregnancy by Byron was beginning to show or make her condition, at least, clear by this time, and the idea was to find a distant lodging from London. Mary was still estranged from her father for her relationship with Shelley and they thought to conceal Clare’s condition. She was still using alternate spellings of her chosen name, Claire or Clare. It was mostly Claire in Switzerland and France using the French spelling, and Clare or Clara in England. Mary was confused enough to use both spellings in the same letter, while others of the family were still calling her by her birth name, Jane (Mary Jane, after her mother).

Mary Godwin wrote two diary entries of their arrival in Bath:

Tuesday, September 10.—Arrive at Bath about 2. Dine, and spend the evening in looking for lodgings. Read Mrs. Robinson’s Valcenga.

Wednesday, September 11.—Look for lodgings; take some, and settle ourselves. Read the first volume of The Antiquary, and work.

Mary had begun a short story version of the “nightmare” vision of that summer while in Switzerland, which Byron had referred to as a “Pygmalion” tale of making a man, but with Shelley’s encouragement, she had decided to write a full novel, which she began in earnest at Bath, writing the first chapters of Frankenstein. She had been writing in a notebook she had purchased in Geneva, but purchased new English paper notebooks in Bath for her longer vision.

The Shelleys had two lodging locations in Bath. The first address was No 5 Abbey Churchyard, on the main square across from the west front of the Bath Abbey. That building, which housed a reading library which may have attracted Mary’s notice, and apartments, was torn down in 1889 to make way for the addition of the Victorian Queen’s Bath expansion of the Bath Pump Room. The other address was two blocks away at No 12 New Bond Street. Shelley was travelling for much of this time, dealing with money issues, negotiations with his father, Sir Timothy Shelley, over his inheritance and the two tragic suicide events, as well as looking for a hoped permanent house to settle in near his friend in Marlow.

In early October, Shelley was corresponding from the 5 Abbey Churchyard address to both Godwin, regarding money he had promised to lend, and to publisher John Murray regarding the eminent publishing of The Third Canto of Byron’s Childe Harold. Shelley was waiting for the publishing proofs to be sent to him at that address where he expected to remain for the winter. For her part, Mary addressed her letters from the 12 New Bond Street address, where Clare was residing. One might conjecture that this was an attempt to show Shelley and Mary, still unwed, to be living separately, or they may have set the nurse and her son in New Bond Street with the pregnant Clare, so that she could be with Shelley when he was in Bath. Mary referred to her step-sister, “looking in on” her, so they were for at least some time apart.

Not long after settling, Mary travelled to Marlow on the 19th of September to meet Shelley and returned on the 25th. They received an alarming letter from Fanny sent from Bristol on the 9th of October and Shelley went to find her, following her to Swansea where she had committed suicide. Mary noted in her diary on 12 October “buy mourning” purchasing mourning clothes for Fanny’s death, although there was no funeral and the body was unclaimed to keep her anonymity and reputation. Mary was writing Frankenstein off and on through this period with a number of references to writing in her diary, making revisions as she went.

She was reading sea voyage literature at this time, suggesting she was writing the Captain Walton beginning of the novel, inspired by her youthful visits to Dundee, Scotland. She was also reading Sir Humphrey Davy’s reference on chemistry, as she was working on Victor Frankenstein’s studies and scientific background. Davey was the originator of ideas of electro-chemistry and voltaic batteries which had so intrigued a young Percy Shelley at Oxford.

Mary wrote a letter on the 5th of December in good spirits to Shelley in Marlow that she had completed “chapter four” (the bringing to life Victor’s creature), but also involving Safie and the creature’s language learning, which she noted she thought was long. She later edited this significantly shorter for the published 1818 version, separating into two chapters. She was also concerned with Shelley’s tendency to latch onto the first house he might find, and seemed to have a wish not to have to live with her sister, which had been nearly constant for two years.

“I was awakened this morning by my pretty babe, and was dressed time enough to take my lesson from Mr. West, and (thank God) finished that tedious ugly picture I have been so long about. I have also finished the fourth chapter of Frankenstein, which is a very long one, and I think you would like it. And where are you? and what are you doing? my blessed love. … in the choice of a residence, dear Shelley, pray be not too quick or attach yourself too much to one spot. … A house with a lawn, a river or lake, noble trees, and divine mountains, that should be our little mouse-hole to retire to. But never mind this; give me a garden, and absentia Claire, and I will thank my love for many favours.”

In November, Shelley was reading Plutarch’s “Lives” and Milton’s “Paradise Lost”, and this seems to have crept into Mary’s writing, as she has the creature reading these while in the De Lacey Cottage in Chamonix.

Shelley returned to Bath from Marlow on the 14th of December, but the next day, the 15th , was informed in a letter from Thomas Hookham that his wife, Harriet Westbrook Shelley, was found drowned in the Serpentine Lake of Hyde Park. She had been missing from her residence for three weeks. She was named only as Harriet Smith at the inquest, a named she had used for a lodging in Queen Street. She had left no note, and little evidence was given, though a rumor suggested she was deserted by a household groom and that she had a proclivity to suicidal thoughts since her youth. The London Times reported only that a respectable lady she was found drowned “advanced in pregnancy”. Mary made no comment on the event of Harriet’s death, but she was enthusiastic to support Shelley’s effort to take custody of the children, Ianthe and Charles, and the Shelleys were now free to marry and hoped for a reconciliation with her father.

“How very happy shall I be to possess those darling treasures that are yours. I do not exactly understand what Chancery has to do in this, and wait with impatience for to-morrow, when I shall hear whether they are with you; and then what will you do with them? My heart says, bring them instantly here; but I submit to your prudence. You do not mention Godwin. When I receive your letter to-morrow I shall write to Mrs. Godwin. I hope, yet I fear, that he will show on this occasion some disinterestedness. Poor, dear Fanny, if she had lived until this moment she would have been saved, for my house would then have been a proper asylum for her.”

Shelley returned to visit Peacock in Marlow to search for a house they might take as a permanent residence and visited Leigh Hunt, the Publisher of the Examiner, beginning a long friendship. Mary Godwin and Percy Bysshe Shelley went to London on December 30, 1816 to be married at St Mildred’s Church, and stayed with the Leigh Hunts. Godwin and Mrs. Godwin also attended the wedding. It was the first time Mary had seen her father since he banned them from Skinner Street after their return from the elopement in 1814. Clare stayed in Bath and Mary promised her a quick return.

Mary stopped writing on her novel during this time. Clare bore her daughter on January 12, 1817. She first named her Alba, in honor of the Shelleys’ nickname for Lord Byron, “Albe” (LB), put prudently changed the name later to Allegra, to avoid the too obvious connection. Mary wrote of “4 days of idleness” in her diary. Her son William’s first birthday was on January 24. Shelley had been in London since the 6th in Chancery Court arguing for custody of his children by Harriet, a suit he lost, despite Mary’s enthusiastic support. The Westbrooks had fought against his taking in the children, using his “atheistic” writings in Queen Mab as evidence of a lack of moral fitness. The children were sent to an unrelated clergyman in Warwick where Harriet had been living. The Shelleys left Bath on February 27, 1816 for Marlow. Mary was pregnant for the third time and beginning on a second notebook volume of her novel.

Take short tour of Bath today.

Secret Memoirs of Mary Shelley  – E-Book

Secret Memoirs of Mary Shelley – Paperback

Get Mary Shelley Memoirs Audiobook Free with Trail at Audible

Secret Memoirs of Mary Shelley Audiobook at Amazon

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