58 Fun Facts About Frankenstein

What is the novel's subtitle?

The Modern Prometheus is the subtitle: in Greek myth Prometheus stole fire from the gods to give life to mankind, as Victor steals the secret of life.

In what year was Frankenstein first published?

Frankenstein was first published in 1818: the three-volume first edition appeared anonymously in London on 1 January of that year.

How old was the author when the novel was published?

Mary Shelley was 20 when Frankenstein was published; born 30 August 1797, she had begun the story at 18 during the summer of 1816.

In which English city was the author lodging when she wrote much of the book?

Bath: from September 1816 Mary lodged at 5 Abbey Churchyard and wrote much of the novel there, finishing it at Marlow in spring 1817.

Who suggested that the group at Villa Diodati each write a ghost story?

Lord Byron proposed the contest on a rainy June night in 1816 after the group read ghost stories aloud; Mary's entry grew into Frankenstein.

The gloomy summer of 1816 that kept the group indoors was caused by the eruption of which volcano?

Mount Tambora in Indonesia erupted in April 1815, the largest eruption in recorded history; its ash cooled 1816 into the Year Without a Summer.

Villa Diodati, where the story was conceived, overlooks which body of water?

Villa Diodati stands at Cologny on the shore of Lake Geneva; the poet hosting the party rented it for the summer of 1816.

Which book of German ghost stories, read aloud in French translation, entertained the group at the villa?

Fantasmagoriana, an 1812 French anthology of German ghost stories, was read aloud at the villa and prompted the ghost-story contest.

Which other landmark horror tale grew out of the same 1816 gathering?

The Vampyre, John Polidori's 1819 tale of the aristocratic Lord Ruthven, grew from his host's abandoned fragment and founded the romantic vampire genre.

Who wrote the preface to the anonymous first edition?

Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote the 1817 preface in the author's voice, which led many early readers to assume the anonymous novel was his.

How many copies were printed of the first edition?

Just 500 copies were printed, in three volumes, the standard 'triple-decker' format of the day, by a small London publisher.

The author's mother, who died days after her birth, was which pioneering feminist writer?

Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), died of septicaemia eleven days after giving birth to Mary.

The author's father, to whom the book is dedicated, was which philosopher and novelist?

William Godwin, author of Political Justice and the novel Caleb Williams, was Mary's father; the first edition carried a dedication to him.

At which university does the scientist study and build the Creature?

Victor studies at the University of Ingolstadt in Bavaria, where Professor Waldman's chemistry lectures set him on the path to the secret of life.

The Frankenstein family belongs to which city, where much of the novel takes place?

The Frankensteins are a distinguished family of Geneva; Victor opens his narrative 'I am by birth a Genevese', and the family house stands at Belrive on the lake.

Which epic poem does the Creature find and read, later comparing himself to its fallen angel?

Paradise Lost, Milton's epic, is among the books the Creature finds; he tells Victor, 'I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel.'

Where does the Creature confront his maker to tell his story and ask for a mate?

On the Mer de Glace, the glacier above Chamonix in the Mont Blanc massif, which Mary Shelley had herself visited in July 1816.

In the novel, where does the scientist build, then destroy, the female creature?

On one of the remotest of the Orkney Islands, in a two-room hut, Victor assembles the female before tearing the unfinished body apart.

Whom does the Creature kill on Victor's wedding night?

His bride Elizabeth is strangled in their room at the inn at Evian; the Creature had warned, 'I shall be with you on your wedding-night.'

Who is the ship's captain whose letters frame the whole novel?

Robert Walton, captain of a ship bound for the North Pole, writes the letters to his sister Margaret that frame the story; he pulls the dying Victor from the ice.

What does the Creature say he will do after his maker dies at the end of the novel?

He vows to burn himself on a pyre: 'I shall collect my funeral pile and consume to ashes this miserable frame', then vanishes onto the ice.

Which of these details of the Creature's creation comes from the 1931 film, not the novel?

A jolt of electricity is the film's invention: Shelley keeps the method vague, saying only that Victor 'infused a spark of being' after two years of work.

The 1831 revised edition changed Elizabeth from the scientist's cousin into what?

An orphan: in the 1831 text Elizabeth is a foundling, the daughter of a Milanese nobleman, adopted by the Frankensteins rather than born Victor's cousin.

Which famous novelist praised the book in Blackwood's as an 'extraordinary tale'?

Walter Scott, reviewing it in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, found 'uncommon powers of poetic imagination'; Mary wrote to thank him and correct his guess at the authorship.

The first stage adaptation, Presumption, was performed in London in which year?

Mary Shelley went to see it and wrote 'lo & behold! I found myself famous!'

Which sci-fi writer argued Frankenstein is the first true science-fiction story?

Brian Aldiss made the case in Billion Year Spree (1973): Victor 'makes a deliberate decision' and turns to laboratory experiment rather than magic.

Who directed the 1931 film Frankenstein?

James Whale, fresh from directing Journey's End, took over the project from Robert Florey in 1931 and went on to make Bride of Frankenstein.

Who played the Monster in the 1931 film?

Boris Karloff, then a little-known 43-year-old character actor, played the Monster; the opening credits billed the role only as '?'.

Which actor plays the scientist in the 1931 film?

Colin Clive plays the scientist, renamed Henry in the film; his friend Victor Moritz is John Boles and Edward Van Sloan is Dr Waldman.

Which studio produced the 1931 film?

Universal Pictures made it under Carl Laemmle Jr.; the profit from Dracula earlier in 1931 persuaded the studio to pursue more horror films.

What is the name of the hunchbacked assistant in the 1931 film?

Fritz, played by Dwight Frye, is the hunchbacked assistant who fetches the brain; Ygor only appeared in Son of Frankenstein (1939).

In the 1931 film, which of the two specimens does the assistant mistakenly bring back?

The criminal brain: startled by a noise, the assistant drops the jar labelled 'normal brain' and takes the one marked 'abnormal brain' from the lecture room.

What does the Monster do to little Maria at the lake in the 1931 film?

State censors cut the scene in 1931; it was rediscovered in a British archive in the 1980s.

Where is the Monster trapped when the mob sets it ablaze at the end of the 1931 film?

An old windmill: the mob torches it with the Monster inside; Bride of Frankenstein opens at the smouldering ruin, where he has survived in a flooded cellar.

Which actor was originally expected to play the Monster in the 1931 film?

Bela Lugosi was first announced for the Monster but balked at a speechless role under heavy makeup, reportedly saying he would not be 'a scarecrow over here'.

Who created the Monster's famous makeup in 1931?

Jack Pierce, the studio's makeup chief, devised the flat skull, neck electrodes and heavy eyelids, spending hours each day applying them to the actor.

Which line from the 1931 film ranks among AFI's greatest movie quotes?

'It's alive! It's alive!' came 49th on AFI's 2005 list of 100 movie quotes; the following 'Now I know what it feels like to be God' was cut by censors as blasphemous.

Which real inventor's apparatus was reportedly used in the 1931 film's laboratory effects?

Nikola Tesla: effects man Kenneth Strickfaden reportedly used a coil built by Tesla himself among the crackling machines that fans now call 'Strickfadens'.

Who plays the Bride in Bride of Frankenstein (1935)?

Elsa Lanchester plays the Bride and also Mary Shelley in the film's prologue; her Bride is on screen for only a few minutes at the end.

The Bride's famous hairstyle was modelled on which historical figure?

Nefertiti: the bust of the Egyptian queen inspired the tall shape, with the hair set in a Marcel wave over a wire frame to hold it.

The actress playing the Bride modelled her hissing on which animal?

Swans: the actress copied the hissing of the swans in London's Regent's Park, and gave herself a sore throat over the repeated takes.

What is the name of the scheming mentor who blackmails Henry into building the Bride?

Dr. Septimus Pretorius, played by Ernest Thesiger, shows Henry his tiny homunculi in jars and forces the collaboration by having the Monster kidnap Henry's wife.

How many words did the studio allow the Monster to speak in Bride of Frankenstein?

44 words: the Monster's vocabulary in the sequel was limited to 44 words, a choice the actor disliked, believing the character's power lay in being inarticulate.

Which Hammer star played Baron Frankenstein in six films beginning in 1957?

Peter Cushing played the Baron from The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) to Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974); Christopher Lee was the Creature in the first.

Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein (1974) was shot in what unusual way for its era?

Entirely in black and white, to mimic the 1930s originals; Brooks even reused Kenneth Strickfaden's 1931 laboratory equipment as props.

Who played the Creature in Kenneth Branagh's 1994 film Mary Shelley's Frankenstein?

Robert De Niro played the Creature opposite Branagh's Victor; he reportedly studied stroke patients to shape the Creature's halting speech.

Who plays the Creature in Guillermo del Toro's 2025 Frankenstein?

Jacob Elordi plays the Creature opposite Oscar Isaac's Victor Frankenstein in the 2025 Netflix film; he stepped in after Andrew Garfield left the role.

Which 1960s sitcom made Frankenstein's monster the father of a suburban family?

The Munsters (1964-66): Fred Gwynne's Herman Munster, a flat-headed, bolt-necked patriarch, lived with his family at 1313 Mockingbird Lane.

The author's husband Percy died in 1822 in what way?

He drowned when his boat sank: the Don Juan went down in a storm in the Gulf of Spezia in July 1822; Mary later kept his heart, wrapped in a page of Adonais.

Which novel did the author publish in 1826?

The Last Man (1826) imagines a plague wiping out humanity by the end of the 21st century, narrated by the sole survivor Lionel Verney.

Which Frankenstein family servant is hanged for a murder the Creature committed?

Justine Moritz, the family's servant, is convicted on the evidence of the locket found in her pocket and executed while Victor stays silent.

Which friend of Victor is murdered by the creature after the female companion is destroyed?

Henry Clerval, Victor's boyhood friend who had travelled with him to Britain, is found strangled on a beach, and Victor is jailed on suspicion of the murder.

Which Oxford institution bought Mary Shelley's Frankenstein manuscripts in 2004?

The Bodleian Library bought the Abinger papers in 2004; its 2008 volume The Original Frankenstein, edited by Charles E. Robinson, separates Mary's draft from her husband's additions.

Whose biographies, the Lives, are among the three books the Creature finds?

Plutarch's Lives, with Goethe's Sorrows of Werter and an English epic, are the three books the Creature finds in a portmanteau in the woods and teaches himself from.

Which small London publishing house issued the first edition of Frankenstein?

Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones, a firm better known for cheap reprints, took the novel after larger houses declined it and issued it in three volumes.

Which blind old man is the only person to receive the Creature kindly?

Old De Lacey, blind father of Felix and Agatha, listens to the Creature with sympathy until Felix returns and beats him out of the cottage.

In which country is Victor jailed on suspicion of murdering his friend?

Ireland: Victor's skiff drifts onto the Irish coast, where he is arrested for a murder committed the night before and spends months in jail with fever.

Which critic attacked the novel anonymously in the Quarterly Review while conceding its author's powers?

John Wilson Croker, the Quarterly's hatchet man, called it 'a tissue of horrible and disgusting absurdity' while granting the author 'powers, both of conception and language'.