THE 200 YEAR-OLD MONSTER

"How I, then a young girl, came to think of, and to dilate upon, so very hideous an idea?" — Mary Shelley

On New Year's Day, 1818, the first edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was released to an unsuspecting Georgian England. Begun two years earlier, when she spent spent a stormy summer at the Villa Diodati on the shores of Lake Geneva with her renegade lover, Percy Bysshe Shelley, her stepsister Claire Claremont, the infamous poet, Lord Byron and his personal physician, John Polidori, it was published anonymously in three volumes by Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones, London. It was dedicated to her father, William Godwin, and this indicated to those who suspected that it was, indeed, Shelley who was the author. When this fact became known (that a story of this nature was written by a woman!), book sales, that had not been successful from the start, declined even more. Much like Edgar Allen Poe's works, it was not until the novel was published in French that it caught on, not only in France, but the rest of the world. A second, revised edition was published in 1831, and it was thereafter forever embedded in the consciousness of English literature.

Today marks the 200th anniversary of Frankenstein's publication. It's impact on literature and popular culture cannot be overestimated. The book is still taught in schools and there are still films that are produced related to the story.

Here at MONSTER MAGAZINE WORLD, this marks the beginning of a year-long celebration of Shelley's novel and her amazing creation, the world's most famous monster!

NOTE: The images shown in today's post are from the University of Notre Dame, where a first edition of Frankenstein is housed in their European literature collection.