
                          Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

                                Frankenstein, or

                                        

                             The Modern Prometheus

 Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
 To mould Me man? Did I solicit thee
 From darkness to promote me? -
                                                        Paradise Lost [X. 743-5]
 
                                       To
                                 WILLIAM GODWIN
               Author of Political Justice, Caleb Williams, etc.
                                 These Volumes
                           Are respectfully inscribed
                                       by
                                   The Author

                                  Introduction

 
The Publishers of the Standard Novels, in selecting »Frankenstein« for one of
their series, expressed a wish that I should furnish them with some account of
the origin of the story. I am the more willing to comply, because I shall thus
give a general answer to the question, so very frequently asked me - »How I,
then a young girl, came to think of, and to dilate upon, so very hideous an
idea?« It is true that I am very averse to bringing myself forward in print; but
as my account will only appear as an appendage to a former production, and as it
will be confined to such topics as have connection with my authorship alone, I
can scarcely accuse myself of a personal intrusion.
    It is not singular that, as the daughter of two persons of distinguished
literary celebrity, I should very early in life have thought of writing. As a
child I scribbled; and my favourite pastime, during the hours given me for
recreation, was to write stories. Still I had a dearer pleasure than this, which
was the formation of castles in the air - the indulging in waking dreams - the
following up trains of thought, which had for their subject the formation of a
succession of imaginary incidents. My dreams were at once more fantastic and
agreeable than my writings. In the latter I was a close imitator - rather doing
as others had done, than putting down the suggestions of my own mind. What I
wrote was intended at least for one other eye - my childhood's companion and
friend; but my dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were
my refuge when annoyed - my dearest pleasure when free.
    I lived principally in the country as a girl, and passed a considerable time
in Scotland. I made occasional visits to the more picturesque parts; but my
habitual residence was on the blank and dreary northern shores of the Tay, near
Dundee. Blank and dreary on retrospection I call them; they were not so to me
then. They were the eyry of freedom, and the pleasant region where unheeded I
could commune with the creatures of my fancy. I wrote then - but in a most
common-place style. It was beneath the trees of
