Manuscript of “Transformation”

The Library’s Pforzheimer Collection holds complete manuscripts for five of Mary Shelley’s short stories, including “Transformation,” often considered her best. This page shows the interaction between Guido and the dwarf just after they meet. The flurry of deletions and replacements in the lower half of the page—changing “you” to “thou” and “your” to “thy”— shows Mary Shelley’s revision process, including her decision to give the dwarf an antiquated, quasi-Shakespearean style of speech. Guido’s fateful question at the page’s end (“What would you that I should do?”) is followed by the dwarf’s proposition, and soon thereafter, the diabolical body switching.