Messenger - Vol. 4, No. 1, Page 4 1994 Student of Frankenstein The pursuit of knowledge was the undoing of poor Victor Frankenstein, but fortunately, modern scholars needn't chase a monster through Arctic netherworlds to expand their knowledge of Mary Shelley's classic. The task will become easier still with the publication of a new book next spring by University of Delaware English Prof. Charles E. Robinson, noted Mary Shelley scholar and expert on all things Frankenstein. But, scholars aren't the only ones picking Robinson's brains these days to glean insight into the world of the beautiful, free- thinking writer who, at the age of 18, literally created a monster. Robinson recently was interviewed by Richard Brown, a film professor and host of "Reflections on the Silver Screen," a regular program on the American Movie Channel. Excerpts from the interview are included in It's Alive: The True Story of Frankenstein, a two-hour special aired Nov. 20 on the Arts and Entertainment Network. The special coincides with the release of TriStar Pictures' epic- sized adaptation of Shelley's thriller. The film, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, is co-produced by Francis Ford Coppola and Kenneth Branagh, who also directs and stars as the tortured scientist Victor Frankenstein. Helena Bonham Carter is cast as Frankenstein's fiancee, Elizabeth, and Robert Di Niro stars as the Creature. (The word "monster" was not allowed to be used on the set.) Unlike earlier film versions of Shelley's tale, this one is said to remain true to the text and to explore in more detail the creature's loneliness and Frankenstein's haunting guilt. All of that and more were explored in the A&E special for which other Shelley scholars were interviewed, along with the likes of actor Gene Wilder and comedian Mel Brooks. Meanwhile, Robinson continues to pore over photographs of Mary Shelley's original text, comparing revisions made both in her handwriting and in the remarkably similar handwriting of her husband, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Robinson has become an expert on the way each author makes a "w," "o," "g" and an ampersand. Laboring at a computer, Robinson re-edits typed text to echo the handwritten revisions. When he finishes editing the Frankenstein manuscripts, which are kept in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, scholars will have at their fingertips comparisons of Shelley's original, hand-penned text, typescript versions of that text and its revisions and the final printed version of the text as it was published in January 1818. (A revised edition was published in 1831.) And, while the work is labor-intensive, it fascinates Robinson to discover how the husband and wife worked together and influenced the story. "It provides empirical evidence for the study of a literary collaboration," he says. "You can see what she wrote, what she changed and what he changed, what she rewrote. "Sometimes," he says, "Percy Bysshe Shelley [whom Robinson refers to as PBS] would make suggestions in pencil. If she were going to keep the change, she would trace over it in ink. Sometimes, she left his suggestions out. "Scholars," he continues, "can also use this text to study the genesis of the Frankenstein text, its sequence and how the manuscript is different from the first published edition. But, it also allows one to see into the artist's mind, to see how the artist worked toward the development of a theme. There are characters whose names are changed, for example, and the chapter breaks are different." Robinson's finished text will be published in two volumes by Garland Press in New York-part of the Bodleian Shelley manuscripts, which are under the general editorship of Donald H. Reiman, the leading Percy Bysshe Shelley scholar in the world. Reiman recently moved to the Newark campus from New York and is now an adjunct professor at the University. Mary Shelley was just 18 years old when she began writing Frankenstein. The child of ardent feminist Mary Wollstonecraft (who died shortly after the childbirth) and author William Godwin, young Mary "eloped" with the married Percy Bysshe Shelley when she was 16. In the summer of 1816, the couple vacationed at Lake Geneva with Lord Byron and passed many rainy days and nights telling ghost stories. Frankenstein was conceived after a night of such storytelling as Mary struggled to sleep. With her husband's encouragement, she kept developing the story that was eventually published anonymously. Today, her tale-which Robinson describes as the story of "men of reason who pursue knowledge to the destruction of their own hearts"-is the most widely read, 19th-century novel of all. More high school and college courses assign Frankenstein than any other novel, Robinson says. The Delaware Humanities Forum often sends Robinson to area high schools to teach Frankenstein to high school seniors. He has been teaching the novel at the University for 30 years. Mary Shelley's early life was beset with tragedy: A half-sister committed suicide; Percy's wife drowned herself and her unborn child after her husband and Mary ran off; Mary's father disowned her for a time; her first child was born prematurely and died; a baby daughter lived only one year; and a son, William, lived only to age 3. Shelley, himself, drowned while sailing in the Bay of Lerici, only 5-1/2 years after they were married. All of this happened before Mary was 25. She would live to be 54 and have other suitors, Washington Irving believed to be among them, but she never remarried. She published five other novels, 25 short stories and two dramas, but she was always to be known as the author of Frankenstein. She never sought the limelight and, were she alive today, Robinson thinks she would be much the same. "I think she would be delighted that her story has become a household word, but, no, I don't think she would appear on Donahue," Robinson says, with a smile. "But, I don't know...maybe MacNeil/Lehrer." -Beth Thomas