Preface, Frankenstein audiobook

Preface of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, read by Anna Butterworth

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Preface. The event on which thisfiction is founded has been supposed by doctor
Darwin and some of the physiological writersof Germany as not of impossible occurrence.
I shall not be supposed as accordingthe remotest degree of serious faith to such
an imagination. Yet in assuming itas the basis of work of fancy,

(00:24):
I have not considered myself as merelyweaving a series of supernatural terrors. The
event on which the interest of thestory depends is exempt from the disadvantages of
a mere tale of specter's or enchantment. It was recommended by the novelty of
the situations which it develops, and, however impossible, as a physical fact,

(00:46):
affords a point of view to theimagination for the delineating of human passions
more comprehensive and commanding than any whichthe ordinary relations of existing events can yield.
I have thus endemned to preserve thetruth of the elementary principles of human
nature, while I have not scrupledto innovate upon their combinations. The Iliad,

(01:08):
the tragic poetry of Greece, Shakespearein the Tempest and Midsummer Night's Dream,
and most especially Milton in Paradise Lostconform to this rule, and the
most humble novelist who seeks to conferor receive amusement from his labors may,
without permission, apply to prose frictiona license, or rather a rule,

(01:34):
from the adoption of which so manyexquisite combinations of human feeling have resulted in
the highest specimens of poetry. Thecircumstance on which my story rests was suggested
in casual conversation. It was commencedpartly as a source of amusement and partly
as an expedient for exercising any untriedresources of mind. Other motives were mingled

(01:59):
with these, as the work preceded. I am by no means indifferent to
the manner in which whatever moral tendenciesexist in the sentiments or characters it contains,
shall affect the reader. Yet mychief concern in this respect has been
limited to the avoiding the enervating effectsof the novels of the present day,
and to the exhibition of the amiablenessof domestic affection and the excellence of universal

(02:23):
virtue. The opinions which naturally springfrom the character and situation of the hero
are by no means to be conceivedas existing always in my own conviction,
nor is any inference justly to bedrawn from the following pages as prejudicing any
philosophical doctrine of whatever kind. Itis the subject also of additional interest to

(02:47):
the author that this story was begunin the majestic region where the scene is
principally laid, and in society whichcannot cease to be regretted. I pass
the summer of eighteen sixteen in theenvirons of Geneva. The season was cold
and rainy, and in the eveningswe crowded around a blazing wood fire and

(03:08):
occasionally amused ourselves with some German storiesof ghosts which happened to fall into our
hands. These tales excited in usa playful desire of imitation. Two other
friends a tale from the pen ofone of whom would be far more acceptable
to the public than anything I cannever hope to produce, and myself agreed

(03:30):
to write each a story founded onsome supernatural occurrence. The weather, however,
suddenly became serene, and my twofriends left me on the journey among
the Alps, and lost in themagnificent scenes which they present, all memory
of their ghostly visions The following taleis the only one which has been completed.

(03:53):
Marlowe, September eighteen seventeen