The Frankenstein Notebooks

November 1, 2013 11:29 AM

You can read online original hand-written versions of all of the known manuscripts of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, in its various stages of editorial development. "All of these notebooks can now be viewed in high quality, resizable page images accompanied by TEI-conformant transcriptions, which enable several different ways to sequence and view the pages of the notebooks, including according to which parts have been written by Mary or Percy Shelley."
posted by SpacemanStix (11 comments total)

I started a bit when I saw "Hand-written", but yeah. The typewriter wasn't invented until about 1860, so books before that were originally written by hand before they got set into print.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 11:33 AM on November 1, 2013

That's Frankenstein.

It's pronounced "Frawnken-schteen"...
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:40 AM on November 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

Fun fact: The monster in the book isn't actually named Frankenstein; that's just the scientist who creates him.

The monster's name is Kevin.
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:38 PM on November 1, 2013 [6 favorites]

Some thoughts from Sparky Sweets, PhD.
posted by wabbittwax at 1:04 PM on November 1, 2013

The monster's name is Kevin.

Little known fact: Shelley considered titling the novel "We Need to Talk About Kevin."
posted by jayder at 1:10 PM on November 1, 2013 [6 favorites]

In the original program for the stage version of Frankenstein, the monster was listed as " _________". True story.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 1:55 PM on November 1, 2013

[:-|I
posted by SpacemanStix at 2:28 PM on November 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

Dr Frankenstein is the real monster. The Sensitive Artist Formerly Known As Sorrows Of Young Monster (TSAFKASOYM) should really be called Monster's Frankenstein.

Nonsense aside, this link is utterly amazing. Poking cautiously at it, since opening the site in too many tabs was a recipe for death by unresponsive scripts on Firefox.
posted by comealongpole at 4:30 PM on November 1, 2013

Dr. Frankenstein built the creature and gave him life with his own hands. He may not be his genetic father, but if the creature doesn't have a right to use Dr. Frankenstein's family name I don't know who does. I have no problem at all with referring to both characters as "Frankenstein."
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:46 PM on November 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

People... not only was the Creature* not named Frankenstein, but Victor Frankenstein was not a doctor! He was a college student.

*preferred moniker given the connotations of "monster"
posted by désoeuvrée at 5:08 PM on November 1, 2013 [2 favorites]

I saw the live broadcast of the National's Cumberbatch/Miller Frankenstein on Halloween (which is excellent btw) and they touch on the name thing... implying denying the Creature a name denies him of self-hood and he has to claim that back.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:26 AM on November 2, 2013 [2 favorites]