Scene from Le Monstre et le Magicien
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.
: Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
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Items in The Written Word
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Thomas Potter Cooke performing the role of the monster in Frankenstein
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Scene from Le Monstre et le Magicien
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Lock of Mary Shelley’s hair
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Illustration of Mary Shelley by Mark Summers
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First edition of Frankenstein
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Second edition of Frankenstein
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