Frankenstein: Annotated for Scientists, Engineers, and Creators of All Kinds (The MIT Press)

by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

2017 David H. Guston, Ed Finn, and Jason Scott Robert Corrected 1818 text of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein © Charles E. Robinson

Essays

by Cory Doctorow

Elizabeth Bear

tale of creation and responsibility.

the literary offspring of an eighteen-year-old girl ensconced in a romantic yet fraught summer getaway on the shores of Lake Geneva in response to a “dare” to come up with a ghost story.

Haha

imagination;

exempt

recommended

imagination

I have thus endeavoured to preserve the truth of the elementary principles of human nature, while I have not scrupled to innovate upon their combinations.

this rule;

avoiding the enervating effects of the novels of the present day,

and to the exhibition of the amiableness of domestic affection, and the excellence of universal virtue.

Haha - that sounds pretty enervating, dontchs think?

the hero

Geneva.

Haha - Byron, no doubt, as he was already famous.

St. Petersburgh,

this wind of promise,

Margaret,

undiscovered solitudes.

a country of eternal light?

Simile

nothing contributes so much to tranquillize the mind as a steady purpose,—a

the soul may fix its

intellectu...

uncle Thomas’s

those poets whose effusions entranced my soul,

do I not deserve to accomplish some great purpose.

Russia.

St. Petersburgh and Archangel.

Archangel,

dauntless courage.

P.L. I.600-604: …. his face Deep scars of thunder had intrencht, and care Sat on his faded cheek, but under brows Of dauntless courage, and considerate pride Waiting revenge. satanic? Or Promethean? http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/V1notes/daunt.html Cf. Undaunted Courage, by Stephen Ambrose http://mountainjourney.com/undaunted-courage-book-review/

I have no friend,

I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me; whose eyes would reply to mine.

I bitterly feel the want of a friend. I have no one near me, gentle yet courageous, possessed of a cultivated as well as of a capacious mind, whose tastes are like my own, to approve or amend my plans.

it is a still greater evil to me that I am self-educated:

I perceived the necessity of becoming acquainted with more languages

Now I am twenty-eight,

feelings, unallied to the dross of human nature,

My lieutenant,

is madly desirous ...

The master

He is, moreover, heroically generous.

What’s the point for that story? Question

as fixed as fate;

Haha

a savage inhabitant of some undiscovered island,

if any one performs an act of kindness towards him, or does him any the most trifling service, his whole countenance is lighted up,