Our Hideous Progeny

EpigraphAnd now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper.– MARY SHELLEY, Introduction to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein ContentsCoverTitle PageEpigraphProloguePart IChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Part IIChapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Part IIIChapter 17Chapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 20Chapter 21Chapter 22Part IVChapter 23Chapter 24Chapter 25Chapter 26Chapter 27Part VChapter 28Chapter 29Author’s NoteAcknowledgementsAbout the AuthorCopyrightAbout the Publisher Prologue‘COULD YOU,’ SAID the inspector, ‘run it all by me one more time, Mrs Sutherland?’I took my time in answering. I paused to smooth out my skirts and steady my breathing, to survey the room – its single grimy window, the awful narrow wood-panelled walls that gave one the impression of being trapped inside a cabinet. I do not consider myself an expert in lying by any means, but if there is one thing I have learned on the subject over the course of my life, it is this: lies cannot be rushed. They must be spun evenly and carefully. Too fast, and you risk tangling up the details; too slow, and it sounds like a stage performance, scripted from the start.And so, despite my racing heart, I paused.‘I already laid it all out before the magistrate this afternoon,’ I said, ‘and the constable before that, not to mention Mr Wilkinson and—’‘Yes, well.’ The inspector squinted at me rather reproachfully through his pince-nez. ‘A man is dead, Mrs Sutherland. We must make sure we record every detail. I’m sure you can spare just a few more moments of your time.’I looked down at my hands, at Part INOVEMBER 1853 – JUNE 1854 1Our house was the house of mourning . . . she no longer took delight in her ordinary occupations; all pleasure seemed to her sacrilege toward the dead.— MARY SHELLEY, FrankensteinIT BEGAN, RATHER, with a black-edged envelope.It must have been late afternoon when it arrived, for I remember the slivers of sunlight that cut the room, casting each mote of dust in gold. Most of the time the study was caught in the looming shadow of the opposing tenements, but for one glorious hour each day the sun shone in and turned the air to honey. It caught upon every gilded title on the bookshelves, lighting up my polished ammonite like a mirror. It was a subject of constant debate between the two of us, whether the curtains ought to be left open or shut to prevent the books from fading. Evidently, however, I had won that day – for it was through a haze of that rare London sunshine that I watched through the doorway as the envelope in question slid from the letterbox and landed, with a gentleness that did not match the gravity of its contents, on