I started assembling examples of the florid, over-written style Mary Shelley adopts in Frankenstein, but that way led to madness, so I’ll start afresh. Here’s just one random example; the Creature’s threat to Victor if he refuses to comply with … Continue reading
Victor Frankenstein’s account continues (see previous post): he relates how he researched obsessively into genetics and anatomy at Ingolstadt. His words are recorded by the equally obsessive explorer, Walton, who’d rescued him from the polar ice. My commentary is partly … Continue reading
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus: 1818 edn. In my previous post I wrote about the tortuous gestation of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. It was written initially, when she was just 18, as a short ghost story at the … Continue reading
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. 1818 edition 1816 was ‘the year without a summer’. The previous year volcano Mt Tambora, in Indonesia, erupted, an event a thousand times more powerful than the recent Icelandic eruption that grounded aircraft … Continue reading
Wendy Moore, How to Create the Perfect Wife, Phoenix paperback, 2014; first published 2013 I first came across this bizarre twist on the Frankenstein story when I was teaching a Romantics module on a degree course a few years ago … Continue reading
Jakob Wassermann, Caspar Hauser. Penguin Twentieth-century Classics, 1992. Paperback, 382 pp. Translated from the German by Michael Hulse. First published with the subtitle ‘Die Trägheit des Herzens’ (Inertia of the Heart), 1908 I remember feeling disturbed and puzzled by Werner … Continue reading
I started this post intending to discuss the three books about La Serenissima [see my picture] by Brodsky (thanks to Karen of Kaggsysbookishramblings blog for the recommendation), Marías and Morris. I became sidetracked – hence this is now an Aside-type … Continue reading
The Haunted Hotel is the second novella or long short story in the trilogy by Wilkie Collins (1824-89) published by Oxford World’s Classics; I posted yesterday on the first one, Miss or Mrs? The Haunted Hotel was first published in six monthly instalments, … Continue reading
Miklós Bánffy (1873-1950), The Transylvanian Trilogy. Vol. 1: They Were Counted (624 pp.) Vol. 2: They Were Found Wanting; They Were Divided (830 pp). Everyman’s Library, 2013. Translated by Patrick Thursfield and Katalin Bánffy-Jelen (the author’s daughter), winners of the … Continue reading
When my piece on Henry James’s 1888 story ‘Louisa Pallant’ first appeared on the Mookse and Gripes site on May 14 (and again here on this site), it inspired several interesting comments and queries. I’ll answer them briefly there, but … Continue reading