Mary Shelley to Frankenstein, Andre Demers (December 2025)

Mary Shelley to Frankenstein

“For round the walls are hung dread engines, such 
As Vulcan never wrought for Jove to clutch 
Ixion or the Titan...”

-Letter to Maria Gisborne, Percy Bysshe Shelley 

Because it was my pleasure, I brought down 

Fire from the heavens to pour into your veins, 
Quickening your blood with secret charms. Renown 
Must attend my work, and yet for all my pains, 
You must be printed with no name, 
As though you were a thing of shame, 
For those who will impugn you for my youth and sex, 
Or perhaps your blasphemous aim, 

And a little it does vex 
That they cannot suspend their disbelief, 
Because the world’s not ready yet to dream 
Or hunt the far-off visionary gleam, 
But it is a relief 
That some future generation will be fit 
To be your truest readers, who commit 
Ideas to reality. The nature 
Of things is coming to light. The legislature 
Of states must always be catching up with the truth, 
And humanity will always be in its youth.

Because it was my pleasure, I demolished 
The competition with you, my creation. 
Some part of you has been published unpolished, 
And yet you are still perfect in summation, 
Because the white heat of youth’s prime must stand 
With all its faults, with no apology in hand. 
It was the year without a summer, and 
Friendship occasioned the spark that came to be you; 
Boredom and stormy weather conspired to free you. 
We read our German ghost stories by the fire, 
Cozy and searching out the means of mirth, 
When for amusement’s sake Byron proposed 
A duel of quills on something supernatural, 
And the best girl did win. It took a year. 
Percy believed it into being with me, 
And like your hero, I have robbed the grave
To put you together, and the many parts 
I used were parts of others who became 
Me, as my daughter who died too young to name, 
To keep her name and have it kept by all. 
As her dead grandmother’s, I hear her call, 
And it tells me I may bring enduring lives 
To birth, not from my body but my mind. 
To play God is a task to all assigned; 
Art is one way to do it, and science is 
Another, but love is the easiest of all. 
And if it never is within our power 
To make a life out of mere lifeless matter, 
We might still learn how death may not devour 
Our little ones before they learn a smatter 
Of our beautiful tongue. This is an age of wonder, 
And medicine may follow the lead of knowledge 
Until we have the privilege to die 
Of old age easily. So much may change, 
If only derring-doers rise to work, 
Those rarities who stand apart and scorn 
The status quo, the false consensuses 
That society and tradition hold so dear. 
Now you are out of my hands, O unsigned book, 
Potent to go and do your work in the world, 
And people will think that Percy wrote you till 
I claim my authorship, when the time is right. 
Let them think that. He wrote you in a way, 
In that he inspired. The rest was leisured walking, 
After the trouble of finding the highest muse. 
In your Chapter ten I placed two stanzas of him, 
Making them one, disposing of their numbers, 
Sans quotes or attribution. I felt it was 
My right, in innocence immutable. 
Percy, some things endure forever. Action 
Has the power to echo all throughout the ages, 
Until the last man says, “It was a fine run, 
Humanity, but I must die. You all 
Have been so valiant and so beautiful.”

And like your hero, I cannot control 
My creation; it lives and bleeds and desires love, 
And rings out through eternity so loud, 
Yet it is harmless, for ideas cannot harm, 
However heretical. An ill will harms. 
Ignorance harms. But ideas are innocent. 

What if the monster’s bride had lived to meet her husband? 
Would they be happy? For that, would they be good? 
Would they raise children who could coexist 
Along humanity with sweet success? 
Perhaps someone else may write that novel, but 
I’m done with the material and relieved.

Now I recall the suddenness with which 
You came to me in a fit of inspiration, 
That day of fate that was hesitant to come, 
Though I was asked again and again, did I 
Think of the plot yet? Yet? And then you came, 
Even as lightning in the dead of night, 
Illumining the world for a brief moment, 
In a waking dream in the early morning of 
A creator beside his new creation, 
Hideous and moving on his vital bed, 
Charged by strange engines whose workings I know not, 
But I leave that to the imagination, 
To the science of a later age. My book, 
Search out the world for worthy readers; go, 
I am so relieved to be finished with you, 
That I wonder if I am even a writer now, 
If I will ever reach your heights again. 
But who can ever keep the heights of youth? 
Maybe those who die in it, and die for their own truth.