Upon his reviving, they agreed to write each a supernatural tale.
Matthew Gregory Lewis, the author of _The Monk_, who visited at
Diodati, assisted them with these weird fancies.
CHAPTER VII.
"FRANKENSTEIN."
That a work by a girl of nineteen should have held its place in
romantic literature so long is no small tribute to its merit; this
work, wrought under the influence of Byron and Shelley, and conceived
after drinking in their enthralling conversation, is not unworthy of
its origin. A more fantastically horrible story could scarcely be
conceived; in fact, the vivid imagination, piling impossible horror
upon horror, seems to claim for the book a place in the company of a
Poe or a Hoffmann. Its weakness appears to be that of placing such an
idea in the annals of modern life; such a process invariably weakens
these powerful imaginative ideas, and takes away from, instead of
adding to, the apparent truth, and cannot fail to give an affectation
to the work. True, it might add to the difficulty to imagine a
different state of society, past or future, but this seems a _sine
qua non_. The story of _Frankenstein_ begins with a series of
letters of a young man, Robert Walton, writing to his sister, Mrs.
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