I admire the Queen of the Goths, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly a lot. The good sis created an entire genre, as a teenager. In a world that thinks all teenage girls are silly, she was always someone I admired. I’ve even written my own series, that some claim has produced an entirely new genre of fiction. But we’re not going to #getgoxed today.
Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein after she had a terrible nightmare. A vision of a terrible creature brought into this world, not by the hands of The Creator, but of man looming over her. I couldn’t find a lot of explanation of her dream, but I assume it was a sort of sleep paralysis. One of my favorite paintings, The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli shows this perfectly. Many believe this painting served as an inspiration for her when writing her book. Her parents were friends with the artist!
There’s another man, if you want to call him a man. After all, one of the greatest debates this book has sparked is ‘what makes a monster and what makes a man?’ He went by the name Johann Conrad Dippel. He was born at Castle Frankenstein (!!!) in 1673. After being imprisoned for heresy, he created Dippel’s oil. He referred to it as “The Elixir Of Life”. In Reality, it was nothing more than bone oil, which is made from distilling animal bones. And should have been known as “The Elixir of Death” because it would later be used for chemical warfare in World War Two. Dippel’s oil was used to make water from wells undrinkable restricting enemies’ access to water. In a blizzard case of fine print, it’s not considered in breech of Geneva Protocol because the oil itself is not lethal. In addition to the oil, he also aided in the discovery of the dye “Prussian Blue”, which is still used today. You’ve probably worn it sometime this week.
Eventually, rumors began to swirl that Dippel was stealing from graveyards so he could preform experiments on them. He had an obsession with the human soul, and that was the basis for many of his alleged experiments. He made no effort to say that he wasn’t a grave robber, or that he was not experimenting on cadavers, so I think he probably was. Especially with his claims of an elixir of life. He does at the age of sixty. He was complete recluse, absorbed by the rumors that surrounded him. Also, from a stoke likely caused by poisoning himself with the elixir that he claimed would keep him alive until he was 135. A few other rumors about Dippel:
🧟♂️He entered a Faustian deal in exchange for knowledge
🧟♂️He owned the Philosopher’s Stone, and that it needed to be combined with his elixir of life. As a Harry Potter fan, I SCREAMED when I read this one! ⚡️
🧟♂️He was broke af (true)
🧟♂️He was driven out of town for his attempts at “soul transference”
A bolt of lightning brought one of his experiments to life. The people in the area still insist this is true.
It’s speculated that Mary Shelley met Johann Conrad Dippel, or at least heard of his macabre experiments whilst traveling with her husband. Or heard of him when she was touring the University of Strasbourg. He was an alumni there! My classmates never seem to shut up about Tomi Lauren, so I think all people are generally excited when they go to school with someone infamous.
In a weird twist of fiction-inception one of the Grimm Brothers wrote to Mary Shelley‘s stepmother detailing a story that he decided not to publish which was based on Dippel. There is literally no proof this letter exists and most experts on The Brothers Grimm agree the person that said they have seen this letter is lying for monetary gain. While there are a lot of tales about a Castle Frankenstein, none of them are similar to Mary’s. Frankenstein wasn’t a terribly uncommon name at the time! It’s easy to infer she met someone with that name during her travels and decided to use it.
There is no solid proof of any of these people meeting, or a direct link to the two...not even like a six degrees of Kevin Bacon thing. The closet thing to a connection I could find was that Mary Shelley might have been acquainted with people involved in Kreis deer Empfindsamen. Which is a literary circle that sometimes met at Castle Frankenstein. I don’t think they ever personally met, because Dippel kept to himself. So we can’t say for certain if Dippel was an inspiration to Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, but I think it’s a fun thing to speculate about. Is it all really a coincidence? Perhaps, Dippel is Frankenstein’s version of Dracula’s Vlad the Impaler.
If you’re interested in more fictional works maybe based on Johann Conrad Dippel. I suggest the wildly underrated “definitely” only had one season Netflix show, Hemlock Grove! Or read the book, which in my opinion is way better.
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