This lecture is notable less so for its presentation, which is poor, but for the inspirational quality of the arguments to which it refers. After listening, I was excited both to read the author's thesis (The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein), but also the original 1818 edition of Frankenstein.

I have never been particularly fond of classic literature, and if forced would prefer a Jane Austen to something in the "horror" pantheon such as Frankenstein (although this may be largely due to my extreme dislike of Dracula, a truly dreadful "novel", and works of fiction which are told in correspondence form in general). Thus it had never occurred to me to read Frankenstein.

Yet even though I found the speaker to be muddled and digressive, the seemingly solid case for Percy Shelley as the actual author of Frankenstein, and for the 1818 edition as a seminal work in English literature (as opposed to the more proliferative 1832 edition), caught my attention. Furthermore, I was intrigued by the author's suggestion that the original work contained thoughtful discussions on atheism, science, homosexuality, and ostracism, and that it was intentionally neutered to form the 1832 edition by William Godwin (Mary Shelley's father) after Percy's death.

As one would expect, despite having been said before (both at the time of its original publication, and as recently as twenty-some-odd years ago), Lauritsen's suggestion that Frankenstein was not written by Mary Shelley was apparently met with considerable hostility in academia. I suppose when your life is based around the study of a particular author or authors, or such-and-such a "movement" or what have you, then you assume that things like authorial misattribution are important, even though it should be evident to you from casual observation that the rest of the world isn't listening and doesn't care. If asked who wrote Frankenstein, I'm sure the average American would say something like "Kenneth Brannaugh".

So while I am not certain I would recommend spending the hour to listen to this lecture, I might recommend picking up a copy of the 1818 edition of Frankenstein to see if it deserves the superlatives laden upon it by Lauritsen when describing its place in English literature. I suspect I will pick up a copy of my own shortly.

Links: http://forum-network.org/lecture/man-who-wrote-frankenstein

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