Was there a literal Dr. Frankenstein ? Mary Shelley’sFrankenstein , or The Modern Prometheusis consider by many to be the first science fiction novel . It was written in 1816 and 1817 , during a time when bringing the stagnant back to life was a serious endeavour in scientific circles .
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley(née Godwin ) indite the book as an geographic expedition of the ethics of such experiment . She and her succeeding husband Percy Shelley were staying with Lord Byron and other Quaker at a Pancho Villa on Lake Geneva when the idea of the novel came to her , doubtlessly tempt by the word among the grouping . The model for the role of Dr. Frankenstein could have been one of more actual people of the time , whose unorthodoxscientific investigationsexplored the nature of life and dying . Here are some possible inspirations .
Erasmus Darwin
Erasmus Darwin ( grandpa ofCharles Darwin ) was a friend of Mary Shelley ’s Padre , William Godwin . Shelley observe Darwin in the prolusion to her novel . He studied electrical healing , the condensation of muscles when stimulated with electricity . Shelley mentions that Darwin “ preserved a piece of vermicelli in a shabu causa , till by some over-the-top means , it began to move with voluntary motion . " ( She actuallymisrememberedthe name of the organism : it wasVorticella , a genus of microscopic sessile animals . )
The termgalvanismcame from the workLuigi Galvani , who break the phenomenon he called animal electrical energy . The term was mint by his contemporary Alessandro Volta , who forge the battery .
Giovanni Aldini
Giovanni Aldini was a nephew of Luigi Galvani . In 1803 , he staged a public demonstration of galvanism at the Royal College of Surgeons in London using the body of murdererGeorge Forstershortly after he was executed . Aldini was able to make the corpse ’s nerve grimace and the arms and legs flex violently by applying electrodes link to a battery .
Henry Cline
Henry Cline had been Mary Shelley ’s MD at one time . Cline made the newspapers in 1814 by reviving a sailor who had been in a coma for months . The act may have impress the future source .
James Lind
Dr. James Lind was a friend to and influence on Percy Shelley . Although Lind is well known for bring out thecureforscurvy , he also experimented with creature electricity , in which he inspire idle toad by applying electrical current to the muscularity .
Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein
Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein could have been an breathing in for the name of Dr. Frankenstein . Kratzenstein began experimenting on the effects of electricity on thehuman body in 1744 , too former to have had any lineal contact with Mary Shelley , but she may have been familiar with his study .
Johann Conrad Dippel
Another possible influence on Shelley may have been Johann Conrad Dippel . Dippel was give birth at Castle Frankenstein in Germany in 1673 , and made an drive to corrupt the castle afterwards in life . Dippel was a theologist who became analchemistand then a aesculapian doc . He make a curative - all called Dippel ’s Animal Oil . He may haverobbed gravesfor experimentation in create artificial life history , but there is no concrete evidence .
Paracelsus
In the novel , Victor Frankenstein mentions that he studied the kit and caboodle of Paracelsus . Born Phillip von Hohenheim in 1493 , Paracelsus entered college at age 16 already outfit with cognition of chemistry . He take to have acquire a mannikin , a microscopic yet to the full formed man , from come alone .
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A version of this story was originally release in 2008 and has been updated for 2025 .
