...principle of life, and whether there was any possibility of its ever being discovered and communicated. ... Perhaps a corpse would be re-animated; galvanism had given token of such things.1 As Marilyn Butler has shown, the controversy that had erupted in 1814 between natural scientists...

...the conversations between Byron and Shelley about the origin of life, she comes upon the idea that 'perhaps the component parts of a creature might be...manufactured, brought together, and endued with vital warmth'. That night she has the vision of a 'pale student of unhallowed arts' that bestows life on a 'hideous...