As Lewis Carroll’s Alice so aptly says, “What is the use of a book…without pictures or conversations?” Welcome to RA Crossroads, where books, movies, graphic novels, and other media converge, and whole-collection readers’ advisory service goes where it may. This month, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein provides the starting point for a winding path.

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus in 1818. The novel was famously born from a story-writing challenge also involving Lord Byron and John William Polidori (who went on to write one of the first vampire novels). An epistolary novel told in a nesting series of frame stories, it recounts the hubris and fatal neglect of Victor Frankenstein, a privileged man so brilliant as to animate life from the dead, but so flawed he cannot cope with the results, unleashing terror on all those he knows and inflicting great harm on the being he creates. The novel’s pace intensifies as characters are crafted from dialog and their reactions to events in a story that bears the hallmarks of many genres, including science fiction, gothic, psychological thriller, horror, and suspense. Interlayered are philosophical reflections and moments of the sublime, which both Victor and his creation seek. 

READ-AROUNDS

Shelley’s grim and meditative novel has strode across the globe, much as the Creature does in the story, lending its parts and pieces to an endless array of creative retellings. Frankenstein has given birth to science-fiction retellings—the genre Shelley helped invent—and to horror, romance, and other adaptations as well. In Eynhallow (Raw Dog Screaming), Tim McGregor imagines characters on the Scottish island where Victor retreats to fulfill his brutal bargain with the Creature. C. E. McGill’s Our Hideous Progeny (Harper) similarly pulls direct threads of the novel. Conversely, works such as Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park (Ballantine), Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (Doubleday: Nan A. Talese), and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (Vintage) nod to Shelley’s profound questions as they explore themes of hubris, ego, ethics, morality, and the price others are forced to pay for someone else’s vision.

GRAPHIC NOVEL READ-AROUNDS

Although Shelley’s text withheld descriptive details of the Creature beyond the barest few, Victor’s laboratory and his creation have become iconic images for visual storytellers. Three finely crafted artistic adaptations not to miss include Lynd Ward’s illustrated edition published by Dover, Bernie Wrightson’s version from Gallery 13, and Frankenstein: Junji Ito Story Collection by Junji Ito (VIZ Media).

FILM WATCH-AROUNDS

Born as it was out of what Shelley called a “waking dream” and a story competition designed to enthrall listeners as jaded as Lord Byron, the cinematic potential of her novel was noted very early on, with a 1910 short film directed by J. Searle Dawley and crafted in a studio owned by Thomas Edison. The most iconic and famous filmic version was created by James Whale in 1931. His Frankenstein, featuring a green-skinned, silent depiction of the Creature, played by Boris Karloff, set the definition of “Frankenstein” for many. Whale went on to direct The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) as well, a highly lauded sequel. The subject is inexhaustible: Grace Glowicki, Tim Burton, Mel Brooks, and Kenneth Branagh have each made versions and recently, both Maggie Gyllenhaal and Guillermo del Toro have created very different adaptations, with del Toro’s connected by its star to another gothic masterpiece, Wuthering Heights.

STAGE WATCH- & LISTEN-AROUNDS

Mary Shelley sat in the audience and watched as her story was transformed into a play. Stage adaptations were the among the first to grapple with the novel and have been plentiful ever since. A few notable modern adaptations include the ballet choreographed by Liam Scarlett, the plays created by Danny Boyle and by Manual Cinema, and the opera composed by Mark Grey. (Image credit: Wei Wang as The Creature in SF Ballet’s “Frankenstein.” Photo by Erik Tomasson).