SOURCE: Frankenstein, Or The Modern Promethius by Mary Shelley (1818)

DESCRIPTION: "How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!--Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips..." (Frankenstein by Mary Shelley)

NOTES: Non-readers often call the monster "Frankenstein" but that name actually belongs to his creator. "Adam" as he is known now has become for us the creature played by Boris Karloff in 1931.

HISTORY: One of the first non-mythic monsters in literature. Eve, or the Bride of Frankenstein was never completed by Frankenstein though in the movies she was. Elsa Lancaster played her wonderfully.

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