Project Gutenberg's Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

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Title: Frankenstein
or The Modern Prometheus

Author: Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

Release Date: June 17, 2008 [EBook #84]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Frankenstein,

or the Modern Prometheus

by

Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

Letter 1

St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17--

TO Mrs. Saville, England

You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the
commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil
forebodings. I arrived here yesterday, and my first task is to assure
my dear sister of my welfare and increasing confidence in the success
of my undertaking.

I am already far north of London, and as I walk in the streets of
Petersburgh, I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which
braces my nerves and fills me with delight. Do you understand this
feeling? This breeze, which has travelled from the regions towards
which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes.
Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent
and vivid. I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of
frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the
region of beauty and delight. There, Margaret, the sun is forever
visible, its broad disk just skirting the horizon and diffusing a
perpetual splendour. There--for with your leave, my sister, I will put
some trust in preceding navigators--there snow and frost are banished;
and, sailing over a calm sea, we may be wafted to a land surpassing in
wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable
globe. Its productions and features may be without example, as the
phenomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in those undiscovered
solitudes. What may not be expected in a country of eternal light? I
may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle and may
regulate a thousand celestial