Frankenstein in early colonial Australia

 Frankenstein: Australia | Berry & Frankenstein |

Victor Frankenstein confronts the monster.

Frankenstein has nothing to do with Australia - right? Well yes, but ... Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is an international cultural phenomenon, moving beyond its notoriety as a classic of Gothic fiction from 1818, on into present day pop culture where reissues of the book and as film and video and performance piece on stage and in art remain prescient. Australia, as one of the second-tier Western societies has obviously fallen under the influence of the monster and the man. "It's Alive!" can be heard on the streets of Sydney just as much as in London or New York or Paris or Mumbai. So let's see if there is anything of import connecting the Antipodean continent to Mary Shelley's dark tale of death and artificial rebirth.

--------------------- 

Snippets

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein was first published anonymously in London around March 1818, and then in corrected and edited editions during 1821 and 1823. The first known published reference to it in Australia is a passing mention in an item from an English paper published in the Colonial Advocate, and Tasmanian Monthly Review and Register, Hobart, on 1 April 1828. That item, titled Northern Expedition, refers to an attempt by Captain Parry to reach the North Pole by ship. Readers of the book will be aware that the Arctic features in Frankenstein as a place of refuge for the monster and pursuit by Dr. Victor Frankenstein. Mary Shelley was obviously interested in, and aware of, the role of English explorers during the late 1700s and early 1800s, Captain James Cook being perhaps the most prominent of those. The article quotes a criticism Parry's efforts published elsewhere, stating:

We hope we shall have no more time wasted, and valuable lives risked, in the periodical Polar Expeditions, from one of which Captain Parry is just returned. The chimeras of an arctic basin and a north-west passage are about as likely to be turned to any practical purpose, as the perpetual motion or the Philosopher's stone. The mere statement of the object of the abortive expedition, that of reaching the North Pole in sledges over land, shows that it was as much at war with common sense as similar achievements ascribed to MUNCHAUSEN and FRANKENSTEIN ; and the result is in harmony with the commencement : conceive the situation of drifting southward on floating ice in an attempt to reach the North Pole ! There really should be a final stop now put to any more such absurdities.

A second reference in the Sydney Gazette of 20 July 1830 is a report from Vienna which states the following in regards to the attractiveness of certain races of European women and the suggestion of an artificially constructed replicant along the lines of that seen in the Blade Runner films:

The Germans have all a comfortable, contented look. The women are reckoned handsome; but their beauties are on a large scale, and if a manufactory a la Frankenstein, were carried on, I verily believe one Austrian belle would make.

Holographic and real "manufactory" female replicants, Blade Runner films.

Holographic replicant, Blade Runner 2049.

In a report on European events and turmoil facing the French King published in The Hobart Town Courier on 21 December 1831, the following was noted: ...the King of the barricades has turned on his creators like the monster of Frankenstein.

A 6 February 1834 report in the Sydney Herald on a racehorse called Frankenstein that ran in a race at Great St. Leger in England reveals the depth to which (supposedly) Mary Shelley's book had entered into British popular culture at that time.

The Launceston Advertiser of 20 February 1834 referred to Shelley's monster as a caricature of humanity in an item on animal noises:

Animal Music. — Nothing can be more discordant than the horrible notes of the Mule. He begins with an attempt to bray like his father, when all the mother comes into his throat, and he dwindles into as awful a caricature of neighing, as Frankenstein's man was of humanity.

Of course, such references would have been incomprehensible to many local readers in the penal colonies of New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land at the time, and only understood by those who had: 1) read the book; 2) read reviews of the book; or 3) engaged in conversations either locally or abroad on the controversial subjects covered in the book, including that of creating life outside of normal sexual reproduction.

The first personal note referring to Mary Shelley appeared The Hobart Town Courier of 8 January 1836 in reference to her son, named after her late husband:

The interest of the reading world has naturally been called forth respecting young Percy Shelly, son of the distinguished writer, Byron's friend, whose poetical genius and premature death produce a favourable feeling towards this future representatives of the title of his grandfather, Sir Timothy Shelly. Strange to say, although brought up among literati, there is no appearance of his having inherited his father's poetic feeling, his grandfather Godwin's romantic philosophy, nor Mary Wolstoncroft's masculine literature; but his genius, which is great, is said to develop itself in mechanism, and pursuits quite unconnected with literature. His mother, the authoress of Frankenstein, Lodore, &c., is residing near Harrow, expressly to superintend the progress of his education.

On 20 February 1837, the Theatre Royal, Hobart Town, presented "for the first time in the Colony", the play Frankenstein, or The Monster.

Colonial Times, Hobart, 14 February 1837.

Text: FRANKENSTEIN; OR, THE MONSTER, Founded on Mrs. Shelley's beautiful novel of that name, with new scenery, dresses, decorations, music, &c, got up expressly for the occasion. The Music arranged by Mr. Bishop. The Scenery by Mr. Gould.

FRANKENSTEIN, a German philosopher of great learning, having, to use his own expression, "By dabbling in the cold damps of the grave, discovered the secret causes of life and death," conceives the bold and ambitious design of forming a being after his own ideas of perfection, and endowing it with life ! Accordingly he frames his work, and having by his art given it life and motion, is horror struck at finding that what he intended as perfection; is a most hideous monster. He flies, and his creation follows him, and after working a variety of destruction, stops his maker, and then leaps into the burning crater of Mount Etna, which will be represented vomiting flames and lead.

Prince Brombino. MR. FALCHON.
Frankenstein. MR. PALMER.
Ritzberg. MR. CAPPER.
Strutt .MR. HODGES.
Julia. Master PALMER.
The "*******!!!"' .Mr. MEREDITH.
Ransaró. Miss SMITH.
Emmeline. Mrs. MEREDITH.
Lisette. Mrs. CLARKE.
Peasants, Soldiers, Courtiers, etc.

It is unknown when the first copies of the book were offered for sale in Australia, though it was listed amongst "Standard Novels" for sale in Newcastle by 1839, and the frequent reference to it in local newspapers as an example of where some project goes wrong and turns on its creator indicates it was available earlier and by then well known.

The play Frankenstein, or, The Man-Monster, opened at the Royal Victoria Theatre, Sydney, on 25 October 1841. The following review appeared in the Sydney Free Press the following day:

The Theatre.

Last night was produced at the Victoria, we believe for the first time, the melo-drama entitled Frankenstein, or the Monster, founded on Mrs. Shelly s Romance of that name. The various arrangements incident to the getting up of this piece must have been attended with considerable expense, and the style in which it was performed is very creditable, all things considered, not only to the enterprising proprietor, and to the managers, but to the performers employed in the exhibition of it. The scene in which the Monster becomes animated was as horrid as the most enthusiastic lover of the marvellous could well desire; but Mr. Lee, who otherwise sustained the character of the Monster very creditably, began too soon to betray the aut jait pantomime of an intelligent and experienced being. The object of the romance is to exhibit the natural and gradual developement of the rude faculties of a being with all the senses and fiercer passions of a man, without his reason, — and the moral which it teaches, if it teaches any, is the madness and fiendish and revolting monstrosity to which the daring impiety and infidelity of man are calculated to give birth. The exhibitions of preternatural strength and fury which occur throughout the piece, and especially the effects of music on the Monster , were well managed by Mr. Lee, especially the latter, in which the performer displayed some excellent pantomime. We cannot conclude this notice of Frankenstein without remarking the grand scenic effect of the Eruption of Mount Etna, with its sulphurous flames and streams of burning lava, into the crater of which the Monster plunges at the close of the drama.

Another appeared in the Australasian Chronicle on the 28th:

Theatre. 

On Monday night the romantic melodrama of Frankenstein, or the Monster Man, founded on a romance of Mrs. Shelley's hear ing the same name, was brought out at the Victoria, for the first time in this colony. There was a good attendance on the occasion, and the performance went off with great eclat. The style in which the piece was got up was very creditable, there being several entirely new scenes introduced, and the concluding .one, an eruption of Mount Etna, was most striking and effective, and reflected great credit upon the artist. Grove, Spencer, and Mrs. Knowles, as usual, acted well, and the past of the monster was truly and effectively played by Mr. Lee, who appeared to have entered completely into the spirit of the author. The character was entirely pantomimic, and was performed by Mr. Lee with great truth. The object of the piece appears to be a lesson upon the too daring and atheistical presumption of man in his researches into the hidden mysteries of nature. Frankenstein, a physican, conceives the mad project that by the powers of galvanism he can create and animate a human being. In the pursuit of this scheme he wastes his substance, neglects his wife and family, and at length succeeds in giving birth to a hideous monster in the form of man, which is endowed with all the fiercest passions of human nature, but without reason This monster, endowed with preternatural strength, perpetrates a variety of excesses, by which Frankenstein is reduced to the verge of misery and despair; and at length, after having murdered the young prince and killed Frankenstein, plunges headlong into the burning crater of Mount Etna with which the drama loses. The piece is one which will bear repetition, and whenever it is performed will no doubt draw a good house.

The play also generated a letter to the editor of The Omnibus and Sydney Spectator on Saturday, 30 October:

To the editors of the "Omnibus." 

You tell us your Spectator is also an Observer, but I think he should also be a reporter and therefore I suggest with great deference that he should give us a little theatrical criticism which does not always consist in flattering either managers or performers. I saw you at the theatre at the representation of Frankenstein, and I suppose we shall see your opinion of it in Saturday's Omnibus. In the mean time, allow me to ask you whether it is necessary to represent the maker of  a monster as a monster of bad acting himself. We have seen this very clever creation acted by the best players in London, who rather seemed to think Frankenstein a character that should be made to interest our feelings in his favour! but Grove thinks it should be played monstrously ill — as if it were true that — "who slays fat oxen should himself be fat." Yours, &c., MERCURY.

[We seldom do venture a criticism on theatrical performers, because we think there is as much done at the Victoria as can well be expected — and the manager deserves praise and encouragement from the press and the public. But we acknowledge the truth of one part of Mercury's observation, that Frankenstein might have been made more interesting — by another cast, without going out of the company. Mr. Grove is a very useful actor but Frankenstein is out of his line. Ed.]

------------------

Shelley and Berry

------------------

References

Anonymous [Mary Shelley], Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus, Lackington, Hughes et al., London, 1818, 280p. 3 volumes.

Anonymous, [Review of Frankenstein], Edinburgh Review and Literary Miscellany, 2, March 1818, 249-53.

Shelley, Mary, Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus, Chez Correard Libraire, Paris, 1821. 3 volumes.

-----, Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus, G. & W.B. Whitaker, London, 1823, 279p. 2 volumes.

-----, Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus, Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, London, 1831. Single volume.

-----------------

Frankenstein: Australia | Berry & Frankenstein |

Last updated: 17 April 2026

Michael Organ, Australia