The Annotated Frankenstein

The point of an edition like this is the annotations. On the one hand, any explanatory notes are interesting, but the notes here are disappointing on two counts. First, there aren't enough of them. There are numerous 2-page spreads with no notes at all. There are any number of interesting subjects that should get notes and don't. Second, more than half of the notes are attempts to validate the editors' interpretation of Frankenstein (which I happen to agree with). Far too many notes consist of "Look! Look! She wrote 'wretch' again!!" and "Percy changed this to 'being,' but Mary changed it back to 'wretch' in 1831." Easily a quarter of the notes show that Mary was thinking about Paradise Lost when she wrote the book. Well, duh. And yes, most people capable of reading Frankenstein only need to be reminded once or twice who Adam, Eve, and Satan are.Getting the negatives out of the way: The quality of the book is shocking. It's easy to get used to getting beautiful books from Harvard and the Belknap Press. This isn't one of them. The notes are printed in a brown ink not very contrasty with the off-white paper and worse, the boards of my copy were so warped, out the packing box, that the cover hovers a good 10 degrees above the book. I have the book under about 20 pounds of other books in hopes that it will flatten. This is the risk of buying on-line, by the way. This copy would never have left a brick and mortar store in this condition.That said, the book is an interesting read. With the editors pointing and waving, it's easier to see how distorted the story has been by its popular acceptance. We've all grown up with the idea that the monster is, well, a monster. We've had evil monsters, vicious monsters, monsters who were unfortunately given bad-guy brains. Even "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" (which isn't, the editors remark with wry accuracy) by Kenneth Branagh gives us an evil monster. And it adds insult to injury by making the plot a "love story" (one thing it emphatically is NOT) that results in Victor trying his reanimation stunt, with predictably bad results, on the dead Elizabeth. We've had crazy Victors, criminal Victors, Byronic Victors (on the bizarre notion that because the Shelleys knew Byron, they must have worshiped him), and well-meaning Victors, but the key to Shelley's vision was the monster, and he's never had his chance to defend himself, except in the novel, where his defense is eloquent. Those few chapters in which the Creature (as the editors call him) tells his own story (however compromised by the multiple narrative layers) make him the most sympathetic character in the novel.The Creature is presented in the novel as an abandoned child. It spends its first two years trying to make sense of a world it knows nothing about (while Shelley uses its experience to critique Rousseau on education; a matter I wish the editors had examined in more detail), to learn language without a teacher, and to find a place in a world where it is the only one of its kind and afflicted with the two unforgivable deformities of ugliness and poverty. When it tells its story, in one of the narrative Russian dolls of the novel, it has already killed Victor's younger brother, but Shelley makes the two years that lead up to this violence lead to it almost inevitably.The novel is about the danger of science pursued without a moral foundation ("for its own sake"). The issue is not so much that Victor shouldn't have created "life," but that creating a living thing places on us responsibilities we cannot avoid. It is Victor (as he histrionically insists) who is responsible for the Creature's crimes. The Creature is "born" as a tabla rasa, with no language, no history, no biography, no morality, and no guidance, no parental foundation. Shelley makes it clear that Victor failed, as God or mother, by refusing to accept responsibility for his "monster" once it came to life. (Yes, I realize that Young Frankenstein manages to make delicious fun of even this aspect of the story.) The editorial notes elaborate on the biographical facts of Mary Shelley's life that point to this interpretation.Frankenstein has its flaws as a novel. It is difficult, sometimes, to tell whether Victor and Walton are speaking for the author or being satirized. Victor tells the story, as his "journal" is recorded by Walton, who admires him (more technically, in a move worthy of Conrad, Walton tells the story, since he "owns" the narrative). Within it, Victor lets the Creature tell HIS story, and it's pretty clear that Shelley is not worrying too much about the POV problems this triple mirror creates. We only see the Creature once without the mediating voice of Victor, and that for less than a minute, through the highly prejudiced eyes of Walton.The great failure of the novel is the failure of so many first-person narratives: over the generations, readers have been seduced by the narrative voice. Just as we forget Marlow is not Conrad, James is not the Governess, Shakespeare is not Hamlet, and Mary Shelley is not Victor Frankenstein. But the reader quickly falls into the fallacy. When Victor calls the Creature evil, we nod and read on. The Creature becomes evil, by any human standard. But no one judges Victor. Except Mary Shelley, and we can thank the editors for letting us see the woman behind the mask. She knew the locus of evil, if she did not fully grasp the power of owning the narrative.

This book is fantastic. It's obvious that this was well researched. It is packed with in-depth notes and a lot of illustrations. The book has a thorough introduction and a timeline in the back. Frankenstein is one of my favorite books, and I will enjoy reading this version which I'm sure will provide new insight and thought to one of the greatest books ever written. This book must have been a labor of love, but one that will be treasured.

Excellent detail - I've heard but not verified there may be some factual errors - that's why I'm not giving it a 5 star rating - see other reviews here for more on that. The quality of the book, binding, paper and illustrations is top-notch.

Meant for serious scholars of this work or of any of it's peripheral texts and papers. Contains a plethora of original documents, manuscripts, film stills, paintings, and tons of Shelly's personal writings. A great book for someone who wants to dig deeper into Frankenstein than just textual knowledge.

From the stunning dust jacket to the beautifully presented text, footnotes and period art, this Annotated really delivers. I wish the "Dracula" was this good.

So glad I purchased this book. It has been a tremendous asset while developing essays and themes for my course work.

Good look at an old favorite

Yes, I was shocked to learn that Lord Byron was only five feet tall, according to an allegedly authoritative annotation on page 110 of English professor Susan Wolfson's and associate professor of English Ronald Levao's THE ANNOTATED FRANKENSTEIN. And I never realized that amongst the trio that visit Colin Clive's Henry Frankenstein in Universal's 1931 film FRANKENSTEIN is an actor playing Henry Clerval, a character from the original novel! I also never knew that it was Lon Chaney Jr. who played the Monster in ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN! Wow! It is so great when annotations enlarge one's knowledge about any given topic in a main text. That is the entire purpose of annotations - to shed Promethean, professorial light on whatever the light of further knowledge is aimed at.The trouble is, in this case the annotations need further annotations to illumine them correctly. Alas, "mad, bad, dangerous to know" Lord B. was NOT a dwarf and was actually five foot eight and a half. And John Boles was NOT playing Clerval in James Whale's FRANKENSTEIN. His character was actually named Victor Moritz. And apart from one or two stand-in scenes shot from a distance (after the actual actor playing the Monster injured his ankle on set), Lon Chaney Jr. did NOT play the Monster in ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN. 'Twas Glenn Strange in his third go at the Monster whilst Lon played Larry Talbot, a.k.a. the Wolfman, in that frankly fabulous and funny film.Here is the point: a Professor of English and an Associate Professor of English helmed this annotated effort which is published by the prestigious Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press. Did no one, therefore, proof-read the annotations before this book was, indeed, printed and put on the market? A five foot Lord Byron is unthinkable! And it is wrong! How could two luminaries of literature NOT have checked this annotation before the ink dried? And what of the other two erroneous annotation listed above? Those are simply three I netted - how many more are there amongst all the other annotations? It is a troubling and sobering thought. Shaky scholarship is always a troubling and sobering thought.But... the thing about this edition is that there really are not all that many annotations in this edition at all. Page after page I felt like as I was Walton or Frankenstein going snow-blind with the Arctic white and waste of so much page space! Surely so much more could have been explored and expounded upon on the often vast emptiness of too many pages. Leonard Wolf, in his admirable 1977 THE ANNOTATED FRANKENSTEIN fleshed out the pages much more enthusiastically with much more information and many more illustrations. Anyway, the cover of this current book is visually arresting and Gothically gripping. The trouble is, the lightening and the castle are more out of Universal Studios than Mary Shelley's novel.