Download image:
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
1797–1851
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
London: Printed for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, 1818.
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan in 1910
PML 16799
Vol. II, pp. 76–77
Transcription:
p. 76
Nay if by moonlight I saw a human form, with a beating heart I squatted down amid the bushes fearful of discovery. And think you that it was with no bitterness of heart that I did this? It was in intercourse with man alone that I could hope
p. 77
for any pleasurable sensations and I was obliged to avoid it—Oh truly, I am grateful to thee my Creator for the gift of life, which was but pain, and to thy tender mercy which deserted me on life’s threshold, to suffer—all that man can inflict