Frankenstein

Mary Shelley had no real intent to write Frankenstein. It began as a short ghost story in mid-June 1815 when she and her husband were on vacation. It's categorized as a Gothic novel. (Frankenstein: Background). Shelley expanded it over the next year and published it anonymously in January 1818. In 1823, her father, William Godwin had a new two-volume edition of the original three-volume book to back Richard Brinsley Peake's stage adaption. Godwin's edition consisted of over one hundred editorial commendations as well as a copy that Shelley gave to a friend with editing notes. Although, nothing was changed until she revised it in 1831 and had it published by Colburn and Bentley. In this edition's introduction, Shelley looked back on her history and answered her frequently asked question, "How I, then a young girl, came to think of, and dilate upon, so very hideous an idea?" The conflicted history of her parents plays a part in Frankenstein. (Shelley). It depicts her version of forming your identity or "soul making". Critics excoriated the refusal to moralize the hideous creature in Frankenstein. Shelley published her novel as an unknown author, so the critics believed that since women would never refuse to moralize then the author must be a "follower of Godwin." (Poovey).