Frankenstein on the Strand

Submitted by Hope Wolf on Thu, 2010-12-02 23:50
Frankenstein on the Strand

Strand theatres housed many dramatisations of Mary Shelley's famous novel:

A burlesque, Frank-n-Steam, opened at the Adelphi Theatre in 1823. 

Frank-n-stein or the Modern Promise to Play, another burlesque, opened at the Olympic Theatre in 1824. 

Frankenstein or the Vampire's Victim opened at the Adelphi Theatre on Boxing Day 1849. 

The Model Man (an alternative to Frankenstein), opened at the Gaiety Theatre on the Aldwych in 1887.

Thanks to Timothy Morton's A Routledge Literary Sourcebook on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein for these dates. 

Thanks to Clare Brant for lending me the postcard from which this image was scanned. It was printed by The Sherwood Press and is from the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. 

Quotation on the back: "I saw the dull, yellow eye of the creature open, it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs...I rushed out of the room." (Mary Shelley)

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