Frankenstein Notebook A

The virtually reconstituted Notebook A is one of two now disbound notebooks in which Mary W. Shelley (MWS) drafted the two-volume version of Frankenstein. Probably purchased in Geneva, the notebook contained draft running from the midst of Volume I, Chapter 1 to the end of the fifth chapter of Volume II, which concludes Safie’s history. This draft was written between August and early December 1816, according to Charles E. Robinson’s Frankenstein Chronology with revisions as late as the end of April 1817.

The disbound Notebook A now consists of 77 loose leaves comprising all of Bodleian MS. Abinger c.56 (formerly designated Dep. 477/1) and Bodleian MS. Abinger c.57 (formerly designated Dep. 534/1), folios 1-18r. Detailed information about its bibliographical details, including paper, watermarks, inserts, and quiring charts, can be found in Charles E. Robinson’s The Frankenstein Notebooks, pp. xxxv-xl. For the S-GA overview of the composition of Frankenstein, see our Introduction.