Manuscript of Frankenstein: TEI Transcription

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A scan of a handwritten document written by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. This scan depicts Folio 21r of Notebook A, one of two notebooks in which the author drafted the two-volume version of Frankenstein. This page in the notebook indicates the start of the seventh chapter in this draft of the novel, where Victor Frankenstein beholds his completed creature for the first time.
75 21

Chapter 7th

It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the frame on whic my man completeated., And with an anxiety that almost amounted to agony I collected instruments of life around me and endeavour to that I might e infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thinkg that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning, the rain pattered dismally against the window panes, & my candle was nearly burnt out, when by the glimmer of the half extinguished light I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open. —It breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.

But how How can I describe my emotion at this catastrophe; or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form. His limbs were in proportion and I had selected his features h as handsome handsome beautiful. Handsome Beautiful; Great God! His dun yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black & flowing and his teeth of a pearly whiteness but these luxuriancies only fomed formed a more horrid contrast with his watry eyes that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set,

A scan of a handwritten document written by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. This scan depicts Folio 21v of Notebook A, one of two notebooks in which the author drafted the two-volume version of Frankenstein. This page in the notebook continues the seventh chapter in this draft of the novel, where Victor Frankenstein beholds his completed creature for the first time.
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his shrivelled complexion and strait black lips.

The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature. I had worked hard for nearly two years for the sole purpose of infusing h life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and heath health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had succeeded these dreams vanished and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the creaturebeing I had created, I rushed out of the room and remainedcontinued a long time traversing my bed chamber unable to compose my mind to sleep. At length sllassitude succeeded to the tumult I had before endured, and I threw myself on my bed in my clothes endeavouring to seek a feew few moments of forgetfullness. But it was in vain; I slept indeed but I was disturbed by the wildest dreams -- I saw Elisabeth in the bloom of health walking in the streets of Ingolstadt; delighted & surprised I embraced her but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips they became lurid with the hue of death; her features appeared