1797 Born Mary
Wollstonecraft Godwin; her father, William
Godwin, the author of An
Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) and Caleb
Williams (1794), grieves over the loss of her mother, Mary
Wollstonecraft, the author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), when
she dies following the birth
1814 Barely 17 and pregnant, she flees to the
Continent with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley
and stepsister Claire Clairmont, leaving behind the first wife of
PBS, who is also pregnant
1815 Feb.: First child of MW and PBS born
prematurely and dies (Moers 323)
1816
William, second child of MWS and PBS, born, and they travel again
with Claire to Geneva to live near Lord
Byron and Dr.
Polidori; MWS writes Frankenstein June - August 1816,
and then August - 17 April 1817, after being inspired by a French
translation of German ghost stories, Fantasmagoriana,
at Villa Diodati near Geneva
That fall, her half sister
Fanny Imlay and PBS's wife Harriet commit suicide
1817 Frankenstein fair copy
1818 Frankenstein published in 3 volumes; their
one-year-old, Clara, dies
1819 William Shelley dies; only surviving child,
Percy Florence, born; John Polidori, The Vampyre
d
1822 PBS drowns
1823 Godwin arranges for 2nd ed. of Frankenstein
to be published in 2 volumes (Robinson 202); Presumption, or
the Fate of Frankenstein staged in London
1824 Byron dies in Greece
1831 New edition of Frankenstein
published, based on the 1823 text
1851 MWS dies in London
Discourses in Frankenstein:
Class, History, Human Rights or Slavery, Nation or
Empire, Religion
Vol. I: Closely analyze one of the scenes below. What
characteristics and traits of European Romantic literature do they
reflect?
1. p. 10: Robert Walton’s letter to his sister
2. p. 22: Victor Frankenstein’s medieval education
3. p. 32: Frankenstein’s motivation to create new life
4. p. 39: First page of Elizabeth’s letter
5. p. 53: Justine
Vol. III:
1. Frankenstein explains that his life is a “tale of terrors” (137
1st ed.). What fears, real and imagined, does the tale of
Frankenstein relate? How might audiences of the period have
correlated these fears to their own lives?
2. What is the significance of Frankenstein’s
dreams? (36/1.4, 127/3.4) Cross reference Shelley's allusion
to dreaming while composing the novel in her 1831 preface (168:
"Night waned . . . ").
3. At the end of the novel, Walton faces a mutiny, one in which
Frankenstein initially intercedes (154). What is Shelley trying to
say about the use and misuse of authority, especially in an age
that gives birth to men like Marat and Napoleon?
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