Godwin's changes in Mary's novel ...
William Godwin, Mary’s father,
as we have seen, was not one to resist what today we call meddling. He was a
most confident man—absolutely certain that he was right about, well, about anything about which he pontificated.
And so he’d arranged—without telling Mary—to publish a new edition of her book,
an act that could seem, of course, a generous, loving surprise gift. But what
about discovering that Godwin had made some alterations
in the text?
Imagine Hawthorne re-issuing his
friend Melville’s Moby-Dick—but
getting rid of all that annoying detail about whaling. (Probably not a good example. Hawthorne was not all that alert to “annoying detail”: check
out the Custom House introduction of The
Scarlet Letter.) But you get the picture. So … what did Godwin change?
One scholar says there were some
“114 substantive differences” between her original 1818 edition and this new
one in 1823.[1]
A look at the list of the changes, now available online, shows they are
generally very small alterations, principally dealing with diction.[2] Here’s an example; the
creature is speaking about his desire to have Victor Frankenstein create a mate
for him:
• 1818 version (Mary’s): How is this? I thought I had moved your
compassion; and yet you still refuse to bestow on me the only benefit that can
soften my heart, and render me harmless.
• 1823 version (Godwin’s): How is this? I must not be trifled with: and
I demand an answer.
A reminder: As you can see, Mary’s
elevated diction is wildly different from the groans and grunts employed by the
creature in James Whale’s influential 1931 film of her novel (with Boris
Karloff as the monster).
About a decade after Godwin’s
edition, Mary would present her own
revision, and in that edition the
changes are profound.
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