Peggy Webling and the Story behind Frankenstein: The Making of a Hollywood Monster

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The 1931 Universal Pictures film adaptation of Frankenstein directed by James Whale and starring Boris Karloff as the now iconic Monster claims in its credits to be Adapted from the play by Peggy Webling. Weblings play sought to humanize the creature, was the first to position Frankenstein and his creation as doppelgngers, and offered a feminist perspective on scientific efforts to create life without women, ideas that suffuse todays perceptions of Frankensteins monster. Buried in a private archive, scholars have never had access to the original play script and so could not fully chart the evolution of Frankenstein from book to stage to screen. In Peggy Weblings Frankenstein, Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum (Weblings great grandniece) and Bruce Graver present the full texts of Weblings unpublished play for the first time. A vital critical edition, this book includes: - the 1928 Library of Congress version of the play Frankenstein with a short manuscript census - the 1927 British Library version of the first production of the play in Preston, Lancashire - the 1930 Prompt Script for the London production, held by the Westminster Archive, London - Weblings private correspondence including negotiations with theatres managers and Universal Pictures, family letters about the production process, and selected contracts - Text of the chapter Frankenstein from Weblings unpublished literary memoir, The Story of a Pen for additional context - Exposition on Weblings life that bears directly on the sensibilities and skills she brought to the writing of her play - History of how the play came to be written and produced - The relationship of Weblings play to earlier stage adaptations - An exploration of playwright and screenwriter John L. Balderstons changes to Weblings play and how the 1931 film compares Offering a new perspective on the genesis of the Frankenstein movie, this critical exploration makes available a unique and necessary missing link in the novels otherwise well-documented transmedia cultural history.

Author Bio

Peggy Webling (1 January 1871 27 June 1949) was a British playwright, novelist and poet. Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum is a historian specialising in the history of astrology, cosmology and divination. She is the great-grandniece of Peggy Webling, the playwright, and holds a private archive of her papers. She has lectured on the history of Weblings Frankenstein for specialists and general audiences. Bruce Graver is Professor of English at Providence College, USA where is a specialist in British Romantic literature. He edited Wordsworths Translations of Chaucer and Virgil (1998), co-edited Wordsworth and Coleridges Lyrical Ballads (2003), and contributed many chapters to edited collections as well as writing and lecturing widely about various British Romantic writers, including Mary Shelley.