CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 10/23/2018

Get Halloween inspiration from 'Frankenstein: The First Two Hundred Years'

When Mary Shelley's then-anonymously authored Gothic horror novel Frankenstein came out in 1818, early reviews were not good. "Our readers will guess from this summary, what a tissue of horrible and disgusting absurdity this work presents," the Quarterly Review decried. "It is piously dedicated to Mr. Godwin, and is written in the spirit of his school. The dreams of insanity are embodied in the strong and striking language of the insane, and the author, notwithstanding the rationality of his preface, often leaves us in doubt whether he is not as mad as his hero… When we have… admitted that Frankenstein has passages which appal the mind and make the flesh creep, we have given it all the praise (if praise it can be called) which we dare to bestow. Our taste and our judgment alike revolt at this kind of writing, and the greater the ability with which it may be executed the worse it is—it inculcates no lesson of conduct, manners or morality; it cannot mend, and will not even amuse its readers, unless their taste have been deplorably vitiated…" Clearly, the reviewer got it wrong. Read more on the 200-year history of this game-changing novel, play, film, and character in Christopher Frayling's tremendous illustrated study, Frankenstein: The First Two Hundred Years, shipping now for Halloween delivery.