Letters From Frankenstein

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oi-Staff

By Staff

Tuesday, December 9, 2008, 16:11

The world popular novel by Mary Shelley, ' Frankenstein' was inspired by a 19th century scientist who aspired to create a life from electricity.

The scientist had become widely known after press reporting of an 1836 electrocrystallization experiment in which the Brit believed he saw creation of new life or "some products formed in a new manner". Andrew Cross, the scientist concerned, is said to have known Shelley through a common friend, poet Robert Southey.

Shelley, whose powerful narration of a scientist's ambition to create a being in the likeness of man, had attended Cross' London lecture in 1814, two years before she wrote the novel. “Mary Shelley attended a lecture that he gave in London that was two years before she wrote Frankenstein," the Telegraph quoted Dr Janet Tall, head of the Somerset County Council's archives, as saying.

The letters written by the scientists, that cost the council 400 pounds at an auction, were the main inspiration behind the authors legendary idea of 'Frankenstein'. The two memos penned by Andrew Cross, an early pioneer and experimenter in the use of electricity, held details of his tests that included attracting lightening to strike a network of copper cables during electrical storms. The letters have been catalogued, and are set to be placed at the Somerset records office, along with other material relating to Crosse.