Editing, 1800s Style

Frankenstein in Two Permutations

1818 Version vs. Mary Shelley’s Draft

I decided to re-read Frankenstein on vacation and was surprised to find a gem of an edition that presents the novel in two different ways. The first is the “1818” version of the novel, which has become the standard, most-reprinted version of the text that you (and I) probably read in school. The second version is a recreation of one of Mary Shelley’s early drafts of the novel, which this edition of the book dubs the “MWS” (for Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley) version. The primary difference between the two is that 1818 novel has editorial changes from Mary’s husband, who was also her primary editor, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, while the MWS version is more like a writer’s draft—a raw, uncorrected early proof of the novel.

What excited me about this edition of Frankenstein is that it offers a rare opportunity to look at the real process of editing in a published and organized form. Containing both the unedited (MWS draft) and edited (1818) versions of the text, The Original Frankenstein has page reference so you can flip between the two as you read. Even more helpful is that the words added in the editorial process are in italics in the 1818 version so that you can clearly see the difference between them sentence by sentence.

It’s an exceptional project (all thanks to scholar and editor Charles E. Robinson). However, if there’s one issue with The Original Frankenstein it is that the book presents the “1818 version”, the one with Percy Shelley’s edits as Frankenstein “by Mary Shelley with Percy Shelley,” as if Percy Shelley is a co-author. Much of the framing in the introduction and descriptive copy of this edition is also centered around rediscovering “Mary’s sole voice.”

This seemingly-feminist marketing slant of reclaiming Mary Shelley’s version is actually quite misleading, and becomes somewhat patronizing upon a closer look at the two versions side-by-side. The 1818, edited version of Frankenstein, adds 4,000-5,000 words to the 72,000-word novel—about 7%. If you’re a literary scholar, 7% is probably a world of difference— as you pick apart and analyze each sentence to death. But as a reader and, crucially, as an editor you find that Percy Shelley’s editorial hand was slight. His edits changed the style somewhat, but the nature of the story not at all. The longest continuous passage that Percy added to the text totals three lines, and adds some social commentary on Geneva and Europe after a description, hardly a transformative editorial addition:

“The republican institutions of our country have produced simpler and happier manners than those which prevail in the great monarchies that surround it. Hence there is less distinction between the several classes of its inhabitants; and the lower orders being neither so poor nor so despised, their manners are more refined and moral. A servant in Geneva does not mean the same thing as a servant in France and England. Justine, thus received in our family, learned the duties of a servant; a condition which, in our fortunate country, does not include the idea of ignorance, and a sacrifice of the dignity of a human being.”

The vast, vast majority of edits add a floridness to the prose, which being a poet and it being the 1800s was clearly Percy’s — and possibly the general reader’s — preference for style. Here are a few random examples of these kinds of edits (italics indicates the words added with Percy’s edit):

“Perhaps we did not read so many books or learn language so quickly as those who discipled according to the ordinary method, but what we learned was impressed the more deeply on our memory.”

“I had been the author of unalterable evil, and I lived in daily fear lest the monster whom I had created might perpetrate some new wickedness.”

“Montanvert was exactly opposite at the distance of a league, and above it rose Mont Blanc in awful majesty. I remained in a recess of the rock, gazing on this wonderful and stupendous scene. The sea, or rather the vast river of ice, wound among its dependent mountains whose aerial summits hung over its recesses.”

These edits add some floweriness to the descriptions, but hardly alter the meaning of Mary’s prose. The implication that Percy functionally drowned out his wife’s voice and took some ownership of the text with these small edits fundamentally misunderstands the practical nature of editing. What’s remarkable is that Mary and Percy’s author/editor relationship isn’t that far off from that of an author and editor today, 200 years later.

Part of an editor’s job is to suggest adding words and sentences — and occasionally even as much as a paragraph — to the authors they work with. If an author accepts those words verbatim as part of the work, or rewrites them slightly from what the editor has suggested, then those words are the author’s, not the editor’s. An editor reads between the lines and tries to help writers clarify what they are saying, not impose their will or their own creative ideas.

Assuming Mary was a passive participant in the editorial process, being forced to make Percy’s changes rather than welcoming them, is quite condescending and something I have never seen floated for male-authored classics. With this logic, many of Raymond Carver’s masterworks would have to be labeled “with Gordon Lish” functionally giving Lish co-author credit. Similarly to this project, Carver’s unedited stories have been published in a volume, but there’s no mention of reclaiming his voice, only of better understanding his legacy and Carver’s style.

A line can be crossed where this is not the case. If an author is bullied into changing their work (see again: Carver) or if the additions are sweeping, than an editor runs the risk of becoming a co-writer. Without knowing the particulars of their editorial relationship, it is clear by the cosmetic nature of Percy’s edits — 5-7% is what I’d consider a typical or light edit — that authorship in both versions is still undeniably Mary’s voice.

Editing is in the Eye of the Beholder

Maybe readers in the 1800s would consider the edited version better according to their tastes. Many fans of classical English literature today still might consider the edited 1818 version better as well, with its Victorian style and polished grammar.

Reading back Mary’s draft, which she initially wrote in a flash over one summer, remarkably at the age of 18, all of her stylistic choices appear completely modern and, to me, better. The sentences are much more direct and unadorned. She initially drafted the novel as 37 short chapters, which likely due to printing/publishing constraints were condensed into 26 chapters. This makes the novel read much more quickly in draft form and gives it an incredible pace. Whether intentional, or just a happy accident because she was writing so quickly, Mary also did not include double quotes for dialogue. As I wrote about last week this lack of quotes for dialogue is a popular literary novelist choice these days, and for Frankenstein I loved the additional timeless quality that this lack of punctuation gave the story.

Reading Mary Shelley’s early draft shows that editorial contributions, like writing styles, are subject to the vicissitudes of time. What is considered good form and writing can change based on the audience. Percy thought he was helping improve the text according to the standards of the 1800s, and now that standards have shifted Mary’s original draft makes one of the most influential novels in the English language appear even more ahead of its time.

Storytelling Shines Through 

The absolute beauty of reading Mary Shelley’s early draft is that it is clearly not written with fastidiousness. There are spelling errors (“aiguilles” would have gotten me, too, at 18, pre-spellcheck), “and” is turned into ampersands, there are misspelled words, bad punctuation, and incomplete sentences. I loved it. There’s a purity to reading Frankenstein as a draft that in addition to the surprising modern technical choices is simply thrilling for its unencumbered creativity. It’s lightning-in-a-bottle type of genius. For writers that suffer from cases of perfectionism, read Mary’s messy draft and be cured. The storytelling, errors and all, still makes you sit up in your seat and take notice.

For editors, it makes you question exactly what we’re here to do. Mary’s draft reinforces the truth an editor can’t edit their way to a masterpiece. Percy’s edits cleaned up the manuscript but didn’t alter what makes the novel incredible. Percy’s editorial work, his 5% shift, may have been an improvement in 1818, it may not be in 2024, but either way edits weren’t going to massively alter what is special about Frankenstein.

If there is one lesson to take from Percy Shelley’s involvement in Frankenstein, it’s another role an editor plays.  Percy aided and did what needed to be done at the time (cleaning up the manuscript, lending his gender, etc.) to get Frankenstein into print. So even if we find Percy’s edits lacking with time, we can still say that as an editor he helped get a book that’s so inspiring and so monumental it’s worth reading two versions side-by-side two centuries later out into the world. & also that Mary’s masterpeace didn’t need much help at all.