The Literary Background to Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein Goes on Show

The literary backgound to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is explored in a new behind the scenes exhibition devoted to Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein movie.

Peter Harrington has put together a selection of rare books that influenced the making of Frankenstein for Frankenstein: Crafting a Tale Eternal, a special exhibition which opens at The Old Selfridges Hotel in London opening October 17. Running through November 9, it features props, artwork and costumes featured in the film that debuts November 7 on Netflix.

Highlights of rare first editions on display borrowed for the exhibition from the private lenders who now own the books include:

• John Milton’s 1667 Paradise Lost, the epic that Shelley’s creature finds in a cottage, shaping his understanding of creation, rebellion, and loneliness
• Luigi Galvani’s pioneering work De Viribus Electricitatis on 'animal electricity' (1792), experiments Shelley knew well that investigated the possibility that dead matter could be brought to life
• Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) and William Godwin’s Political Justice (1793), radical works by Shelley’s parents about human potential and the ethical responsibilities

The centrepiece of the display is the 1818 presentation copy of Frankenstein, inscribed by the 21-year-old Mary Shelley to Lord Byron who sparked her imagination. Sammy Jay, senior literature specialist at Peter Harrington and curator of the collection, discovered it more than a decade ago on his grandfather’s bookshelf.

"Finding the Frankenstein really was my origin story in the world of rare books," he said. "Taking that book off the shelf was a galvanic moment that electrified my life and truly gave me the direction I was searching for. When the book was offered for sale it was quickly snapped up by a UK-based collector and wonderfully they have occasionally allowed it to go on exhibition, but I think this show as part of the exhibition for the Frankenstein film is, to me at least, the most exciting yet.

"I’m looking forward to watching the new film. I am most excited by the fact that Guillermo del Toro is explicitly devoted to making a film of the book which in truth has not really been done before. Most of the filmic history of Frankenstein is a continuation of the bastardised play versions which came out in the 1820s and wholly misrepresented not only the plot but also the meaning of the book."