Part A: Quotes and Images

"I have no friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy, if I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavour to sustain me in dejection." Letter 2, pg 4

"we are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves -- such a friend ought to be -- do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures." Letter 4, pg 14








"It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of things or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or in it highest sense, the physical secrets of the world." Chapter 2, pg 23





"The labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind." Chapter 3, pg 34








"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." Chapter 4, pg 38

"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." Chapter 5, pg 42








"No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success. 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." Chapter 6, pg 51

"A flash of lightning illuminated the object and discovered its shape plainly to me; its gigantic stature, and the deformity of its aspect, more hideous than belongs to humanity, instantly informed me that it was the wretch, the filthy demon to whom I had given life." Chapter 7, pg 60

"I beheld those I loved spend vain sorrow upon the graves of William and Justine, the first hapless victims to my unhallowed arts." Chapter 8, pg 73

"All men hate the wretched; how then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us." Chapter 10, pg 83







"When I looked around I saw and heard of none like me. Was I, then, a monster, a blot upon the earth from which all men fled and whom all men disowned?" Chapter 13, pg 105













"from that moment I declared everlasting war against the species and more than all, against him who had formed me and sent me forth to this insupportable misery." Chapter 16, pg 121

"I am alone and miserable: man will not associate with me; but one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species and have the same defects. This being you must create." Chapter 16, pg 129

"If I have no ties and no affections, hatred and vice must be my portion." Chapter 17, pg 132

"I was the slave of my creature I allowed myself to be governed by the impulses of the moment; and my present sensations strongly imitated the fiend would follow me and exempt my family from the danger of his machinations." Chapter 18, pg 139

"But I am a blasted tree; the bolt had entered my soul; and I felt then that I should survive to exhibit what I shall soon cease to be-- a miserable spectacle of wrecked humiliation, pitiable to others and intolerable to myself." Chapter 19, pg 149

"You can blast my other passion, but revenge remains -- revenge, henceforth dearer than the light of food! I may die, but first you, my tyrant and tormentor, shall curse the sun that gazes on your misery." Chapter 20, pg 153

"The cup of life was poisoned forever, and although the sun shone upon me, as upon the happy and gay of heart, I saw around me nothing but a dense and frightful darkness, penetrated by no light but the glimmer of two eyes that glared upon me." Chapter 21, pg 166

"Great God! If for one instant I had thought what might be the hellish intention of my fiendish adversary, I would rather have banished myself forever from my native country and wandered a friendless outcast over the earth then have consented to this miserable marriage. But, as if possessed of magical powers, the monster had blinded me to his real intentions, and when I thought that I had prepared only my own death, I hastened that of a far dearer victim." Chapter 22, pg 174-175

"As I heard it, the whole truth rushed into my mind, my arms dropped, the motion of every muscle and fibre was suspended; I could feel the blood trickling in my veins and tingling in the extremities of my limbs." Chapter 23, pg 179

"All my speculations and hopes are as nothing, and like the archangel who aspired to omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell." Chapter 24, pg 194

"Oh! Be men, or be more than men. Be steady to your purposes and firm as a rock. This ice is not made of such stuff as your hearts may be; it is mutable and cannot withstand you if you say that it shall not. Do not return to your families with the stigma of disgrace marked on your brows. Return as heroes who have fought and conquered and who know not what it is to turn their backs on the foe." Chapter 24, pg 198

"I refused, and I did right in refusing, to create a companion for the first creature. He showed unparalleled malignity and selfishness in evil; he destroyed my friends" Chapter 24, pg 199

"Seek happiness in tranquility and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries." Chapter 24, pg 200

"How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that clinging love we have of life even in the excess of misery." Chapter 20, pg 162