Assemblage

RAW MATERIALS

TO MAKE HISTORY, gather together a poet and his lover and her stepsister, another poet and his doctor. Send them to the mountains in summertime but have the weather betray them, turn cold and wet, keep them inside near a roaring fire. Provide a book of ghost stories and a spirit of competition. One of them, the lover, Mary Shelley, will write Frankenstein.

History: ORIGIN late Middle English, via Latin from Greek historia: ‘finding out.’

To make a creature, start by stalking the dead. Dig them up and take what you need. Assemble the parts to your ideals: strength, symmetry, beauty. Apply what science you have learned over sleepless nights and fevered days. Behold your creation—and be dismayed.

Dismay: ORIGIN Middle dis- may