Mary Shelley
“The world was to me a secret, which I desired to discover.”
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein (1818 first edition), chapter 2 — spoken by Victor
Documented source
Attribution
Mary Shelley
Source
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein (1818 first edition), chapter 2 — spoken by Victor
In full
“The world was to me a secret, which I desired to discover.”
Status
Public domain in the United States
Every quote here is traced to a documented source. How we verify →
About this line
It’s Victor Frankenstein describing his boyhood — the pure hunger to know what the world is made of. Shelley plants the whole tragedy right here: the same curiosity that opens the world is the one that undoes him.
Why we carry this line
I know that hunger, that curiosity to understand. I suspect you do too. And that’s why we’re both drawn to this quote.
Objects carrying this line
More from this authorMary Shelley →