For those who missed class, or simply want to see it again, here's the handout I gave out in class today about the changes Shelley made between the 1818 and 1831 versions of the novel. These are only two significant ones, and there are many more minor ones that still change how we read the novel.
I. Volume One, Chapter Seven (or Eight in 1831)
[1818] “Oh, Justine! forgive me for having for one moment
distrusted you...I will try to comfort you; but this, I fear, is an evil too
deep and poignant to admit of consolation, for there is no hope. Yet heaven
bless thee, my dearest Justine, with resignation, and a confidence elevated
beyond this world. Oh! how I hate its shews and mockeries! when one creature is
murdered, another is immediately deprived of life in a slow torturing manner;
then the executioners, their hands yet reeking with the blood of innocence,
believe they have done a great deed. They call this retribution. Hateful
name! When that word is pronounced, I know greater and more horrid punishments
are going to be inflicted than the gloomiest tyrant has ever invented to
satiate his utmost revenge. Yet this is not consolation for you, my Justine,
unless indeed that you may glory in escaping from so miserable a den. Alas! I
would I were in peace with my aunt and my lovely William, escaped from a world
which is hateful to me, and the visages of men which I abhor.”
[1831] Oh, Justine! Forgive me for having one moment
distrusted you...Justine shook her head mournfully. “I do not fear to die,” she
said; “that pang is past. God raises my weakness and gives me courage to endure
the worst. I leave a sad and bitter world; and if you remember me and think of
me as of one unjustly condemned, I am resigned to the fate awaiting me. Learn
from me, dear lady, to submit in patience to the will of heaven!”
II. Volume Two, Chapter Eight (or Nine, in 1831)
[1818] “...I perceived a woman passing near me. She was
young, not indeed so beautiful as her whose portrait I held, but of an
agreeable aspect, and blooming in the loveliness of youth and health. Here, I
thought, is one of those smiles bestowed on all but me; she shall not escape:
thanks to the lessons of Felix, and the sanguinary laws of man, I have learned
how to work mischief. I approached her unperceived, and placed the portrait
securely in one of the folds of her dress.”
[1831] “I entered a barn which had appeared to me to be
empty. A woman was sleeping on some straw; she was young: not indeed so
beautiful as her whose portrait I held; but of an agreeable aspect and blooming
in the loveliness of youth and health. Here, I thought, is one of those whose
joy-imparting smiles are bestowed on all but me. And then I bent over her, and
whispered, “Awake, fairest, thy lover is near—he who would give his life but to
obtain one look of affection from thine eyes: my beloved, awake! The sleeper
stirred; a thrill of terror ran through me. Should she indeed awake, and see
me, and curse me, and denounce the murderer? Thus would she assuredly act, if
her darkened eyes opened, and she beheld me. The thought was madness; it
stirred the fiend within me—not I, but she, shall suffer; the murder I have
committed because I am forever robbed of all that she could give me, she shall
atone. The crime had its source in her: be hers the punishment! Thanks to the
lessons of Felix and the sanguinary laws of man, I had learned how to work
mischief. I bent over her and placed the portrait securely in one of the folds
of her dress. She moved again, and I fled.”
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