Making the Monster: The Science Behind Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein - Kathryn Harkup

Published in 2018 by Bloomsbury Sigma, London, UK

304 pages

ISBN: 978-1-4729-3373-7 (hardback)

Intro: 

Since its publication just over two centuries ago, Mary Shelley’s Gothic horror classic Frankenstein has become a staple of pop culture. Every Halloween, along with witches, vampires, and zombies, Frankenstein monsters roam around the cultural zeitgeist, their square heads and bolted necks showing up everywhere from costumes to commercials. Such images have been ingrained in our collective imaginations, more so inspired by theatrical performances (such as those from Boris Karloff) than from the actual novel. Reading it for the first time at the age of fourteen, I remember being engrossed in the macabre details of Shelley’s dreadful tale, accentuated with inspirations from alchemy and science. Frankenstein is considered to be the first work of science fiction, and it has inspired countless adaptations (over 400 films) and influenced the genre of science fiction to this day. But, just how much of Frankenstein is rooted in actual science, and how much is pure fiction? 

In her 2018 book, Making the Monster: The Science Behind Mary’s Shelley’s Frankenstein, chemist, and writer Kathryn Harkup takes us into the debates and controversies of Enlightenment science to investigate how contemporary scientific discoveries might have influenced Shelley’s famous novel. Interweaving Shelley’s biography, the debates of late 18th and early 19th-century scientific discourse, and the historical precedent for the creation of Frankenstein, Harkup explains how Victor Frankenstein’s hubristic endeavors to create life were rooted in actual Enlightenment science. 

Overview: 

Before we even get to the contents of Mary Shelley’s famous novel, we are given a thorough biography of her life, starting with recounting the lives of her parents, activist and early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, and philosopher William Godwin. Harkup also gives us a brief, but holistic biography of Mary Shelley’s partner and eventual husband, Percy Shelley. We are shown Mary Shelley’s complex and tragic upbringing, leading her to eventually leave England to travel Europe nearly penniless with her husband, her stepsister Clair, and Clair’s lover, Lord Byron. This leads us to that seminal, rainy night in 1816 at Villa Diodati in Switzerland, when Bryon proposed that they each write a ghost story to share with one another. Although neither Byron nor Percy completed their stories, both the teenage Mary and Byron’s physician, John William Polidori, ended up creating two staples of the horror genre: Frankenstein and the vampire. 

The central thrust of the book, however, recounts the developments in the science of Mary Shelley’s era that ended up influencing and making their way into her novel. She recounts how natural science and chemistry gradually gained popular favor and explanatory power over alchemy, as well as the eventual overthrow of Galenic medical theory. We are taken into the black market world of bodysnatchers, graverobbers, and resurrectionists who would meticulously exhume bodies and bring them to anatomists at universities for a generous fee. Such a lucrative, profitable, and legally tenuous trade opened the doors for bad faith actors and serial killers such as William Burke and William Hare, who would murder patrons of their inn and take the still-warm bodies to Knox’s anatomy school in Edinburgh to receive an exorbitant monetary payoff. We are also given a history of how various cultures and scientists preserved bodies, as well as a detailed biological account of decomposition, showing just how difficult Victor’s endeavor would have been. Finally, Harkup also recounts the debates around the discovery and fervor that surrounded electricity, most notably the discourse concerning galvanism and the reanimation of corpses. Through all of these examples, we see how science in the early 19th century was not constrained to laboratories and universities. Rather, these odd and eccentric experiments were conducted in public squares for entertainment, even if many of them were too macabre and stomach-turning for audiences. As such, these scientific advances would have been discussed in early 19th century London circles, to which many of which Shelley had direct or indirect access. 

Returning full circle, the last section of the book returns to Shelley’s biography after the publication of Frankenstein in 1818. We are shown the numerous tragedies that the young Shelley endured, including ostracization from her father, the death of all but one of her children, the tragic loss of Percy in a shipwreck, the suicide of her stepsister Fannie, and her struggles to make money as a female writer in a patriarchal society. Harkup recounts the crushing heartbreaks that Mary faced throughout her life, and how these tragedies made their way into her famous novel, as well as her later work. 

Commendations: 

First of all, Harkup has given us an incredibly well-researched and written account of the development of science in Mary Shelley’s time. The book is readily accessible, even for those who have not even read Frankenstein or have just a passing familiarity with it, which makes this a relatively quick and enjoyable read. Now, when it comes to accurate information, I’m typically skeptical of pop-science books that contain some variation of the subtitle “the Real Science of *insert pop culture work here.*” Yet, Harkup has done her homework, as she thoroughly gives context to the scientific world of the early 19th century. Harkup is well-trained as a chemist and scientist, and she revels in the opportunity to describe the chemical processes of decomposition and the physics of early electrical experiments. Additionally, she also does a wonderful job of bringing the historical development of these ideas and processes to life, flexing her abilities and skills as a narrative historian as well. 

Relatedly, Harkup does a phenomenal job in recounting the basic biography of Mary Shelley while keeping it engaging and interesting. I found myself absorbed in the narrative of their lives and didn’t mind that the entire first section of the book only makes passing references and foreshadowing to Frankenstein. She makes these figures jump from the page and come to life (in true Frankensteinian fashion), and I found it much more engaging and had a more natural rhythm and flow than her later book, Death By Shakespeare. Harkup treats her subject with a humanizing touch and recounts Mary’s tragic-filled life with respect and dignity. 

Furthermore, Harkup underscores an important - and often underplayed - aspect of Enlightenment science: the role of showmanship and entertainment of scientific experiments. She also emphasizes the collaborative nature of science and makes an interesting connection to this facet by contrasting it with the actions of Victor when he discovers the secret to reanimating life, yet keeps it to himself (thus emphasizing his selfishness and hubris, in contrast to sharing and collaborating in the name of scientific progress). Also, Harkup dispels many myths and apocryphal tales within the history of science as well as Shelley’s life, sticking close to her primary sources. 

For those wanting to dig deeper into the ideas introduced in this book, Harkup provides an extensive bibliography for further reading, as well as a condensed, but incredibly thorough, timeline of events in the appendix, placing important scientific developments alongside Shelley’s lifetime. The book is also accompanied by classical medical illustrations and as well as experimental illustrations to give the reader a more holistic picture of what she describes in the text. Yet, while Harkup’s dedication to the fine details of the science and the vivid descriptions of graverobbers, skin graft surgeries, and bodily decomposition make for gripping reading, it also leads to the main criticism that can be levied against this book. 

Critique: 

Although Harkup is steadfastly dedicated to scientific accuracy, this can make the bit dry at times, especially if you are wholly unfamiliar with the plot of Frankenstein or are relatively uninterested in the fine details of Enlightenment science. While many of the details regarding disagreements in the science of the era are interesting, some of the finer points can get a little repetitive and overly-detailed. In addition, some of Harkups’ narration can be a bit gruesome at times, especially in her detailed descriptions of the decaying processes that corpses endure (complete with maggots, flesh-eating insects, and more!) She doesn’t quite revel in the macabre as much as in her later work, Death by Shakespeare, but it can still turn-off the overly-squeamish. 

Also, for those who are die-hard fans of Frankenstein, be warned that oftentimes the science aspect of this book overshadows the focus on literature, and Frankenstein sometimes serves merely as a backdrop to discuss the history of science. Accordingly, those wishing for an in-depth analysis of the novel will likely be disappointed. This book is more focused on putting the novel into its historical context than analyzing the novel itself, although I’m sure that even avid fans of Frankenstein (myself included) will find much to enjoy in this offering. 

Conclusion: 

Overall, Making the Monster is an enjoyably macabre examination of science in the early 19th century, using Frankenstein as an interesting case study for the intersection between literature and science. This book will be equally engaging for both history and science buffs, as well as any fan of Frankenstein who wants to learn more about the context of such a great and influential novel. More than anything, the book will make you appreciate Mary Shelley as an extraordinary human being who faced her share of hardship and toil, yet used her abilities to stitch together one of the most influential and long-lasting monsters in the Western world of horror.