Mary Shelley began work on her classic horror novel ‘Frankenstein’ when she was just eighteen years old. At one point, perhaps seeking inspiration or simply a helping hand with a troublesome passage, she appropriated text from husband Percy Shelley’s ‘Geneva Notebook,’ which contained his drawings of mountains and lakes (for which one is spoilt for choice in Switzerland, of course), and notes for his poem ‘Mont Blanc’.
The extract appeared almost word-for-word in her story, which is not surprising because Percy’s words had been ‘appropriated’ by being torn out of his notebook. As far as we know — young love being what it is — he didn’t mind a bit.
Mary’s original draft also shows where her husband had made suggestions for improving the manuscript. Notably, he suggested changing ‘handsome’ to the more abstract ‘beautiful’ in the scene where Victor Frankenstein brings his bits ‘n’ pieces creature to life — ‘beauty’ being a touchstone of Romantic poetry. Either way, Mary’s description made it clear that ‘ugly’ was closer to what Victor saw.
I learned this and much more at the excellent ‘Write Cut Rewrite’ exhibition the Weston Library, Oxford, which runs until January 5, 2025.
Admission is free.
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