Frankenstein, A Longman Cultural Edition

by Shelley, Mary J; Wolfson, Susan J.

• ISBN13: 9780321399533
• ISBN10: 0321399536
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-06-30
• Publisher: Pearson

Summary

From the Longman Cultural Editions series, this second edition of Frankenstein presents Mary Shelley's remarkable novel in several provocative and illuminating contexts: cultural, critical, and literary. Series Editor Susan J. Wolfson presents the 1818 version of Mary Shelley's famous novel in its cultural and historical contexts. Like all great works of fiction, Frankenstein gains depth and dimension from its "conversation" with contemporary texts, especially those by Shelley's own parents, husband, and friends. A lively introduction is complemented by a chronology coordinating Shelley's life with key historical events and a speculative calendar of the novel's events in the late eighteenth century. In addition to the 1818 text, this cultural edition features the introduction to and a sample revision of the 1831 version. New to this Edition is Frankentalk, a section of selected references to Frankenstein in the popular press, and the complete text of Richard Brinsley Peakers"s Frankenstein, A Romantic Drama, the first stage version of Frankenstein. Fans of Science Fiction and Gothic Literature.

Author Biography

Susan J. Wolfson is professor of English at Princeton University. In addition to this present volume, her editorial work includes  Felicia Hemans (Princeton UP, 2000) and the Longman Cultural Edition of John Keats.  With Claudia Johnson, she is coeditor of the Longman Cultural Edition of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. With Peter Manning, she is coeditor of the Romantics volume in The Longman Anthology of British Literature, and Selected Poems of Lord Byron (Penguin, 2005).  Her critical books include the prize-winning Formal Charges: The Shaping of Poetry in British Romanticism (Stanford UP, 1997) and Borderlines: The Shiftings of Gender in British Romanticism (Stanford UP, 2007).

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	ix
About Longman Cultural Editions	xi
About This Edition	xiii
Introduction	xvii
Table of Dates	xiii
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818)	1	(179)
Volume I	5	(59)
Volume II	64	(51)
Volume III	115	(65)
from Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1831)	180	(29)
M.W.S.'s Introduction	186	(5)
Some Additions to Robert Walton's first letters	191	(3)
Some Additions and Revisions to Victor Frankenstein's Narrative	194	(17)
Victor's childhood and the adoption of Elizabeth
Victor's enchantment with occult science and his encounter with modern science
Victor's departure for University of Ingolstadt
Clerval's straits
Victor meets Professors Krempe and Waldman
Victor 's health suffers
Elizabeth's report on Ernest Frankenstein Clerval's lament for William
Victor's anguish over Justine and William
Victor's continuing agony
[Creature's story of framing Justine]
Victor's plans for a second creature
Clerval's imperial ambitions
Victor's apprehensions for his family, his longing for oblivion
Victor's secret
Contexts	209	(2)
Monsters, Visionaries, and Mary Shelley	211	(62)
AESTHETIC ADVENTURES	211	(7)
Edmund Burke on "the Sublime and the Beautiful"	212	(3)
Mary Wollstonecraft on Burke's genderings	215	(1)
William Gilpin on "the Picturesque"	216	(2)
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, from The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere (1798)	218	(10)
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT, from The Wrongs of Woman; or Maria: Jemima's story	228	(17)
MARY GODWIN (SHELLEY), from her journal of 1815: the death of her first baby	245	(2)
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, from Alastor; or, The Spirit of Solitude	247	(9)
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY, with Percy Bysshe Shelley, from History' of a Six Weeks' Tour: Alpine scenery	256	(2)
PERCY BYSSHE, SHELLEY, Mont Blanc	258	(5)
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON	263	(6)
from Manfred, A Dramatic Poem	263	(4)
from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto the Third: Alpine thunderstorm	267	(2)
LEIGH HUNT, from Blue-Stocking Revels, or The Feast of the Violets	269	(1)
DR. BENJAMIN SPOCK, from Baby and Child Care	270	(3)
The Story-Telling Compact	273	(28)
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON, A Fragment	274	(6)
JOHN WILLIAM POLIDORI, The Vampyre	280	(21)
God, Adam, and Satan	301	(22)
GENESIS: chapters 2 and 3 (King James Bible)	302	(2)
JOHN MILTON, from Paradise Lost	304	(10)
WILLIAM GODWIN, from Political Justice	314	(1)
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON, Prometheus	315	(2)
WILLIAM HAZLITT, remarks on Satan, from Lectures on the English Poets	317	(2)
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
from Prometheus Unbound	319	(2)
from A Defence of Poetry	321	(2)
Richard Brinsley Peake, Frankenstein, A Romantic Drama in Three Acts (1823)	323	(46)
Reviews and Reactions	369	(33)
[John Wilson Croker], Quarterly Review, January 1818	372	(5)
[Walter Scott], Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, March 1818	377	(5)
(Scots) Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany, March 1818	382	(3)
Belle Assemblée, March 1818	385	(1)
British Critic, April 1818	386	(3)
Gentleman's Magazine, April 1818	389	(1)
Monthly Review, April 1818	389	(1)
Literary Panorama, June 1818	390	(1)
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, March 1823	391	(1)
London Morning Post, reviews of Peake's Frankenstein, July 1823	392	(2)
George Canning, remarks in Parliament, March 1824	394	(1)
Knight's Quarterly Magazine, August 1824	395	(3)
London Literacy Gazette, November 1831	398	(1)
[Percy Bysshe Shelley, posthumous], Anthenœum, November 1832	399	(3)
Frankentalk: Frankenstein in the Popular Press of Today	402	(23)
Further Reading and Viewing	425