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.
Saville in England, from St. Petersburg, where he is about to embark
on a voyage in search of the North Pole. He is bent on discovering the
secret of the magnet, and is deluded with the hope of a _never_
absent sun. When advanced some distance towards his longed-for goal,
Walton writes of a most strange adventure which befalls them in the
midst of the ice regions--a gigantic being, of human shape, being
drawn over the ice in a sledge by dogs. Not many hours after this
strange sight a fresh discovery was made of another man in another
sledge, with only one living dog to it: this time the man was seen to
be a European, whom the sailors tried to persuade to enter their ship.
On seeing Walton the stranger, speaking English, asked whither they
were bound before he would consent to enter the ship. This naturally
caused intense excitement, as the man, reduced to a skeleton, seemed
to have but a short time to live. However, on hearing that the vessel
was bound northwards, he consented to enter, and with great care he
was restored for the time. In answer to an inquiry as to his object in
thus exposing himself, he replied, "To seek one who fled from me." An
affection springs up and increases between Walton and the stranger,
till the latter promises to tell his sad and strange story, which he
had hitherto intended should die with him.

This commencement leads to the story being told in the form (which
might with advantage have been avoided) of a long narrative by the
dying man. The stranger describes himself as of a Genevese family of
high distinction, and gives an interesting account of his father and