By Anne Levin

When Susan Wolfson and other board members of the Keats-Shelley Association of America came up with the idea to mark the bicentennial of the 1818 novel Frankenstein with a worldwide reading, Wolfson knew that Princeton had to be one of the locations.

A professor of English at Princeton University, Wolfson has edited two editions of the classic novel and has taught it to numerous graduates and undergraduates. So it makes sense that the campus, specifically the 19th century Chancellor Green Rotunda, is one of the 500 sites in more than 40 countries where “Frankenreads” are about to take place.

Starting on Halloween and continuing through the next two evenings, an eclectic mix of about 65 readers — high school and University students, alumni of all ages, artists, sculptors, novelists, poets, playwrights, scientists, actors, and Princeton residents — will take turns reading aloud sections of Mary Shelley’s famous novella about a young scientist who, with good intentions, assembles a superhuman creature and brings it to life, only to be horrified at the result.

The book’s enduring appeal is due to Shelley’s skill as a storyteller, wordsmith, and understanding of social and scientific issues of her time. “It’s very readable,” said Wolfson. “The novel is very literary. It has a tremendous amount of sympathy for this creature, an automaton who is kind of a menace and a nightmare of science, but wants nothing more than to join the human community that rejects him only on the basis of his physical appearance.”

Shelley wrote Frankenstein at a time when slavery was rampant, women were treated as inferior, and the lower working classes were regarded as sub-human. “The novel has a way of tapping into major cultural issues,” said Wolfson, “to say nothing, of course, of the anxieties and thrills of the new science of the day.”

After securing a grant from the David A. Gardner Foundation, Wolfson began planning a series of Frankenstein events at the University, starting with an inter-disciplinary seminar that took place in 2016. A recent restaging of Richard Brinsley Peake’s 1823 melodrama Presumption; or the Fate of Frankenstein by the Princeton University Players marked the first time the play was staged in more than 150 years.

Shelley wrote the novel in three volumes. Readers will do a volume a night, with each of the three readings lasting about three hours. A screening of the first silent film of Frankenstein ever made, running about 13 minutes, will be shown on a continuous loop. There is a local connection there, too: It was made in 1910 by Thomas Edison in Menlo Park. “It’s a very intriguing, densely symbolic little film,” said Wolfson.

On campus, the Frankenstein commemorations will continue with follow-up events including a seminar on November 7 by Joyce Carol Oates and Peter Singer, “Frankenstein’s Progeny,” in East Pyne Hall; and a lecture by Wolfson, “Frankenstein Then and Now,” at the Lewis Center for the Arts on November 8. Those venturing outside Princeton can visit an exhibit on the novel at The College of Staten Island, or attend a performance of the off-Broadway musical Frankenstein at the St. Luke’s Theatre in New York City.

At Chancellor Green Rotunda,”Frankenreads” begin Wednesday, October 31 at 6:30 p.m. and continue November 1 and 2. Wolfson hopes to draw audience members from outside the campus. “This is really a community event hosted by Princeton University. It’s free,” she said. “There is no registration. People can come and go, and we’ll have refreshments. The Halloween crowd has been invited to costume up, as long a it doesn’t compromise the Rotunda or get us in trouble.”