ABSTRACT

Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel Frankenstein was published anonymously in 1818. In the same

year, a couple of other novels – Peacock’s Nightmare Abbey and Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey

– also appeared and their derisive use of Gothic conventions suggested that the form,

fashionable for fifty years, was sliding into decline and disrepute. There seemed good reason

to suppose that Frankenstein, an adolescent’s first effort at fiction, would fade from view before

its print-run was sold out.