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 Potter Cooke performing the role of the monster in Frankenstein

Lock of brown hair encapsulated in a mylar sleeve

Lock of Mary Shelley’s hair

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

Victor (fl. 1826), artist
Pierre Jacques Feillet (1794–1855), lithographer
Scene from Le Monstre et le Magicien
ca. 1826
The Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle

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.

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

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