Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley · Frankenstein, 1818
“The world was to me a secret, which I desired to discover.”
| Source | Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein (1818 first edition), ch. 2 — Victor |
| Date | 1818 — cite the 1818 first edition, not the 1831 revision |
| Speaker | Victor Frankenstein, describing his boyhood |
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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.
