The Lady and Her Monsters (30 page)

Notes

P
ROLOGUE

The details of Luigi Galvani's experiments, his dissections of frogs, and the help his family and assistants offered are to be found in several places, including Galvani's
De viribus electricitatus in motu musculari commentarius.
Also, portions of those experiments are reprinted in
The International Workshops Proceedings
from the University of Bologna and the book published by the Cooperativa Libraria Universitaria Editrice Bologna,
Fra biologia e medicina.

The reference to the “martyrs of science” comes originally from a quote by Hermann Helmholtz, which is reprinted in Frederick Holmes's “The Old Martyr of Science: The Frog in Experimental Physiology.”

The details of Giovanni Aldini's experiments on George Foster are to be found in Aldini's
An Account of the Late Improvements in Galvanism: With a Series of Curious and Interesting Experiments Performed Before the Commissioners of the French National Institute and Reprinted Lately in the Anatomical Theatres of London: To Which Is Added, an Appendix, Containing the Author's Experiments on the Body of a Malefactor Executed at New Gate.
Also, references to Aldini's experiments can be noted to some extent in Radu Florescu's
In Search of Frankenstein,
Anne K. Mellor's
Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters,
and the
Newgate Calendar.

Sir Humphry Davy's references can be found in further detail in Jane Fuller's
Young Humphry Davy: The Making of an Experimental Chemist,
as well as Humphry Davy's
A Discourse, Introductory to a Course of Lectures on Chemistry,
and Davy's nine-volume
Collected Works.

C
HAPTER 1

The story of Mary Shelley and Claire Clairmont's hiding beneath the family's sofa can be found in numerous places: Betty T. Bennett's
The Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley;
Paula R. Feldman and Diana Scott-Kilvert's
The Journals of Mary Shelley;
Radu Florescu's
In Search of Frankenstein;
and Anne K. Mellor's
Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters.

The section on Mary Shelley's birth, Mary Wollstonecraft's death, and William Godwin's reaction to the events comes primarily from William Godwin's
Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman,
though references to the events can be found in many other sources, such as William Godwin's “Correspondence & Papers,” including his diary, now held at the Abinger Collection in the Bodleian Library; passages in Charles Robinson's
The Frankenstein Notebooks;
Anne K. Mellor's
Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters;
footnotes and introductions in Paula R. Feldman and Diana Scott-Kilvert's
The Journals of Mary Shelley;
and Betty T. Bennett's
The Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.

The information on electricity and the thunderstorms on the night of Mary Shelley's birth comes from Humphry Davy's
A Discourse, Introductory to a Course of Lectures on Chemistry.

The section on William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft's friendship and courtship can be found in William Godwin's
Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman.

References to the reviews of William Godwin's
Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman
come from London's
Monthly Review.

The introduction to Mrs. Jane Clairmont and the courtship that ensued with William Godwin come from William Godwin's
Diary
and “Correspondence & Papers.”

Quotations from Charles Phillips on public hangings come from his own book
Vacation Thoughts on Capital Punishments,
while details on the execution of John Holloway and Owen Haggerty come from G. T. Crook and John L. Ragner's
The Complete Newgate Calendar,
including the announcement and prayer from the bellman at St. Sepulchre.

Humphry Davy's quotations can be found in his
A Discourse, Introductory to a Course of Lectures on Chemistry,
as well as his
Collected Works.

C
HAPTER 2

References to Luigi Galvani's demonstrations, the anatomical theater sections, and the criminality in Bologna can be found in several places: Marco Bresadola's “Medicine and Science in the Life of Luigi Galvani” and “Animal Electricity at the End of the Eighteenth Century”; Giovanna Ferrari's “Public Anatomy Lessons and the Carnival: The Anatomy Theater of Bologna, Past and Present”; Lodovico Frati's
Il settecento a bologna;
Mario Fanti's
Presentazione;
Luigi Galvani's
De viribus electricitatus in motu musculari commentarius;
Marco Bresadola and Giuliano Pancaldi's
Luigi Galvani International Workshops Proceedings;
Robert M. Green's “A Translation of Luigi Galvani's
De Viribus Electricitatus in Motu Muscularis Commentarius.
Commentary on the Effect of Electricity on Muscular Motion
”; J. L. Heilbron's “The Contributions of Bologna to Galvanism”; Pasquale Orlandi's
Memorie storiche della terra di medicina;
and Marcello Pera's
The Ambiguous Frog.

Berengario da Carpi's experiments and demonstrations can also be found in the above sources, including Giovanna Ferrari's “Public Anatomy Lessons and the Carnival.”

Andreas Vesalius's visit to and lectures in Bologna, as well as his studies of anatomy and evening escapades into body snatching, can be found in various sources, including C. D. O'Malley's
Andreas Vesalius of Brussels
and Vesalius's
De humani corporis fabris libri septem,
translated by William Frank Richardson.

Baldasar Heseler's recollections of Vesalius's anatomy lessons in Bologna can also be found in the translation of
De humani corporis fabris,
as well as Ruben Erikkson's
Andreas Vesalius' First Public Anatomy at Bologna 1540. An Eyewitness Report.

Comments and quotations on the early anatomy theaters come from William Brockbank's “Old Anatomical Theatres and What Took Place Therein.”

Luigi Galvani's experiments and notes on his demonstrations can be found in his
De viribus electricitatus in motu musculari commentarius.

Bassiano Carminati's interchange with Galvani and the various letters between the two are also reprinted in Galvani's
De viribus.

Details on the life of Alessandro Volta, his experiments, and his exchanges with Luigi Galvani can be found in various places: Marco Bresadola's
Animal Electricity at the End of the Eighteenth Century: The Many Facets of a Great Scientific Controversy;
Giovanna Ferrari's “Public Anatomy Lessons and the Carnival: The Anatomy Theatre of Bologna”; Luigi Galvani's
De viribus electricitatus in motu musculari commentarius;
the University of Bologna's
International Workshop Proceedings;
Raffaele Bernabeo's
Luigi Galvani (1798–1998) fra biologia e medicina: Atti della Accademia delle Scienze dell'Istituto di Bologna, classe di scienze fisiche, anno 286;
Orlando Pasquale's
Memorie storiche della terra di medicina;
Alessandro Volta's
Elettricità scritti scelti;
and Marcello Pera's
The Ambiguous Frog.

Giovanni Aldini's experiments on oxen, his procurement of cadavers, and his meddling with the lunatic Luigi Lanzarini can be found in greater detail in John Aldini's
An Account of the Late Improvements in Galvanism; with a Series of Curious and Interesting Experiments Performed Before the Commissioners of the French National Institute and Repeated Lately in the Anatomical Theatres of London; to Which Is Added, an Appendix, Containing the Author's Experiments on the Body of a Malefactor Executed at New Gate.

C
HAPTER 3

Some descriptions of the city of London upon Giovanni Aldini's arrival can be found in Roy Porter's
English Society in the Eighteenth Century.

Further information on James Graham's experiments is found in Peter Otto's “The Regeneration of the Body: Sex, Religion and the Sublime in James Graham's Temple of Health and Hymen.”

Horace Walpole's reaction to Graham's Temple of Health is printed in Walpole's “To Lady Ossory,” reprinted in
The Yale Editions of Horace Walpole's Correspondence
.

The tales of the resurrectionists can be found in even more detailed descriptions in Christian Baronet's
The Autobiography of Sir Christian, Baronet;
James Moores Ball's
The Body Snatchers: Doctors, Grave Robbers and the Law;
James Blake Bailey's
The Diary of a Resurrectionist, 1811–1812, to Which Are Added an Account of the Resurrection Men in London and a Short History of the Passage of the Anatomy Act;
and Ruth Richardson's
Death, Dissection, and the Destitute.

The doctor's poem quoted at his deathbed can also be found in James Blake Bailey's
The Diary of a Resurrectionist.

More extensive information on George Foster's alleged crime and subsequent trial and confession can be found in G. T. Crook and John L. Ragner's
The Complete Newgate Calendar.

Charles Dickens's visit to the prison can be read in full in “A Visit to Newgate,” originally printed in
Sketches by Boz.

Further and more complete information on the Murder Act can be found in James Moores Ball's
The Body Snatchers: Doctors, Grave Robbers and the Law,
as well as James Blake Bailey's
The Diary of a Resurrectionist.

George Foster's death by hanging and his subsequent retrieval from the gallows by Mr. Pass are detailed in G. T. Crook and John L. Ragner's
The Complete Newgate Calendar,
while Giovanni Aldini's extensive experiments on the body of George Foster can be found in full in John Aldini's
An Account of the Late Improvements in Galvanism; with a Series of Curious and Interesting Experiments Performed Before the Commissioners of the French National Institute and Repeated Lately in the Anatomical Theatres of London; to Which Is Added, an Appendix, Containing the Author's Experiments on the Body of a Malefactor Executed at New Gate.

The death of Mr. Pass was reported in Crook and Ragner's
The Complete Newgate Calendar,
as well as John Aldini's
An Account of the Late Improvements in Galvanism.

C
HAPTER 4

The information on Paracelsus can be found in his own book
De rerum natura
(
Concerning the Nature of Things
), as translated by A. E. Waite.

Portions of Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein
can be found in James Rieger's reprinted edition of
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus,
as well as the edition of
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
with introduction and notes by Maurice Hinoce.

Paracelsus's recipe for the homunculus and accounts of many of his other experiments can be read in full in his
De rerum natura
(
Concerning the Nature of Things
).

The quote and recipe for making the golem in the Polish Jewish tradition comes from Jacob Grimm's
A Journal for Hermits.

Details on Percy Shelley's life at Oxford can be found in even further detail in Thomas Jefferson Hogg's
Shelley at Oxford
as well as Edward Dowden's
The Life of Percy Shelley,
in two volumes.

Tiberius Cavallo's experiments and his interchanges with Dr. James Lind are printed in Cavallo's
A Complete Treatise in Electricity, in Theory and Practice, with Original Experiments, Containing the Practice of Medical Electricity, Besides Other Additions and Alterations.

Percy Shelley's letter to Thomas Jefferson Hogg was reprinted in Edward Dowden's
The Life of Percy Shelley,
as well as T. J. Hogg's
The Life of Percy Shelley.

A description of Percy Shelley's dabbling with laudanum and subsequent nightmares can be found in Edward Dowden's
The Life of Percy Shelley
as well as Thomas Medwin's
The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Descriptions of Dundee's history, including the history of whaling, are to be found in the
Dundee Advertiser,
as well as from the Dundee Whaling History Project.

Physical descriptions of Mary Shelley are quoted from Edward Dowden's
The Life of Percy Shelley,
while Percy Shelley's marriage to Harriet Westbrook, their escape to Scotland, and his subsequent meeting with Mary Shelley can be found in various places, including Thomas Jefferson Hogg's
Shelley at Oxford;
Edward Dowden's
The Life of Percy Shelley;
Thomas Medwin's
The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley;
and to some extent, Betty T. Bennett's
The Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.

Percy Shelley's letter to T. J. Hogg detailing Eliza Westbrook's involvement in his life and that of his wife can be found reprinted in Edward Dowden's
The Life of Percy Shelley.

Descriptions of Harriet Shelley after Percy Shelley's abandonment can be read in full in Mark Twain's
In Defense of Harriet Shelley and Other Essays.

C
HAPTER 5

William Godwin's letter to John Taylor is reprinted in Paula Feldman and Diana Scott-Kilvert's
The Journals of Mary Shelley.

Claire Clairmont's quote on leaving Mary Godwin and Percy Shelley alone in the grounds of the cemetery can be found in R. Glynn Grylls's
Claire Clairmont, Mother of Byron's Allegra
and Marion Kingston's
The Journals of Claire Clairmont
and
The Clairmont Correspondence: Letters of Claire Clairmont, Charles Clairmont, and Fanny Imlay Godwin.