Frankenstein (The Original 1818 'Uncensored' Edition)

by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been.

The world was to me a secret, which I desired to discover; to her it was a vacancy, which she sought to people with imaginations of her own.

No youth could have passed more happily than mine.

If, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to explain to me, that the principles of Agrippa had been entirely exploded, and that a modern system of science had been introduced, which possessed much greater powers than the ancient, because the powers of the latter were chimerical, while those of the former were real and practical; under such circumstances, I should certainly have thrown Agrippa aside, and, with my imagination warmed as it was, should probably have applied myself to the more rational theory of chemistry which has resulted from modern discoveries. It is even possible, that the train of my ideas would never have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin. But the cursory glance my father had taken of my volume by no means assured me that he was acquainted with its contents; and I continued to read with the greatest avidity.

Blaming everyone BUT himself...

This last stroke completed the overthrow of Cornelius Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus, who had so long reigned the lords of my imagination.

Makes it seem as though this were due to some irreversible stroke of destiny rather than his unbrudled and hubristic ambitions

I see by your eagerness, and the wonder and hope which your eyes express, my friend, that you expect to be informed of the secret with which I am acquainted; that cannot be: listen patiently until the end of my story, and you will easily perceive why I am reserved upon that subject, I will not lead you on, unguarded and ardent as I then was, to your destruction and infallible misery. Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.

Epistolary nature allows this to feel like a direct warning to Walton and the reader of the consequences of dangerous knowledge and moral transgressions

Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world.

A new species would bless me as its creator and source, many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve their’s.

Ambition to be worshipped and revered like a god, ad clear desire to push past natural bounds

unhallowed damps of the grave, or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay?

But I forget that I am moralizing in the most interesting part of my tale; and your looks remind me to proceed.

Cuts through the severity and the gravity of his previous warning

dreary night of November,

Pathetic fallacy- what good things have ever happened in November

How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form?

For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.

which you know, Cousin, is a favourite scheme of mine.

Firsthand insight into their relationship and makes the story far more personal