Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

The New York Public Library holds seven of the 500 first-edition copies of Frankenstein. This is a rare “presentation copy”—one that the author herself presented as a gift. Mary Shelley gave it to Thomas Jefferson Hogg (1792–1862), who was friends with Percy Bysshe Shelley when they were undergraduates at Oxford University. Both were expelled in 1811 for writing and distributing a pamphlet advocating atheism.

Hogg remained an important ally to Mary Shelley for the rest of her life. In 1823 she connected Hogg to his future partner and the mother of his children: her confidante Jane Williams (1798–1884), whose husband died at sea with Percy Bysshe Shelley.