Long-sleeved white shirt with elongated triangular collar panels, backlit to highlight show the embroidered text that covers the fabric

The August 23rd Blouse

Black-and-white print showing a man in a toga-like garment holding a young girl in one arm while another man sinks to one knee and seems to plead with him

Scene from Le Monstre et le Magicien

Black-and-white print showing a man in a toga-like garment and cape holding a dagger in one hand as another man cowers on the floor

Thomas Charles Wageman (1786–1863), artist
Nathaniel Whittock (1791–1860), lithographer
Mr. T.P. Cooke, of the Theatre Royal Covent Garden, in the Character of the Monster in the Dramatic Romance of Frankenstein
London: N. Whittock?, ca. 1832–34
The Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle

Mr. T.P. Cooke, of the Theatre Royal Covent Garden, in the Character of the Monster in the Dramatic Romance of Frankenstein

With his towering stature, wild flowing hair, and blue-painted muscles, the English actor Thomas Potter Cooke (1786–1864) gave the world its first enduring visual representation of Frankenstein’s creature. These lithographs show Cooke in scenes from two different stage adaptations of the novel: the first and most successful, Presumption! or, The Fate of Frankenstein (wall, left), which debuted in 1823; and a later French production called Le Monstre et le Magicien (wall, bottom center). Cooke was previously best known for his performance as a different monster: in a play called The Vampyre, he starred as Lord Ruthven, a character based in part on Lord Byron and a precursor to Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula.

Holding Division: Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle

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