Golly gee whiz.I wish I could be there! Frankenstein Day at the Bodleian Library will take place on 7 October 2008. Events include: a special display of Mary Shelley's original manuscripts; a lecture by Charles E. Robinson, the author of the new edition and a book launch with Brian Aldiss as guest speaker. The Original Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (with Percy Shelley) edited by Charles E. Robinson, (448 pp, Hardback, £14.99, ISBN: 1 85124 396 8 / 978 1 85124 396 9) is a new edition of the first and most popular work of science fiction, allowing Mary Shelley's pure authorial voice to be heard for the first time since 1817, when the book was initially written. The Bodleian publication uses the unique handwritten draft of 1816-17, held at the Library, to distinguish Mary's own words from the additions written in by her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley. For years, scholars have debated the degree to which Percy Shelley influenced his wife's novel, but no one has been able to read what Mary Shelley herself initially wrote in this original draft of the novel. Going back to the unique draft manuscript of the text held in the Bodleian Library, Charles E. Robinson has identified up to 5,000 edits in Percy Shelley's handwriting. Both texts -- with and without Percy's interventions -- are presented in this edition.
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/
http://www.bodleianbookshop.co.uk/