The available resources at Wilson Library, as well as other facilities on campus, were first introduced to me as a first year in my English 105 class with Professor Grant. Being able to have the opportunity to get a glimpse at the achieves that relate directly with our course simply exemplifies the extents of what is available to us as students at UNC-CH. Before coming to college, I would not have been as appreciative about taking a visit to Wilson Library, but now I can see the value in being aware of my resources. Since I have done research in Wilson Library before, my prediction of what our visit would be like was similar to my other experiences there. The setup of the room with all the related books from our course sectioned together was well organized and in itself showed the extents of the available works. Even though the works had this familiarity with our course, all the pieces had their differences when compared to the particular edition of the book we read.
During our time there, I was able to look at all the materials from the Frankenstein section. The version of Frankenstein we read in class compared to the various representations of Frankenstein from the archives allowed me to make interesting connections that related to our conversations in class. One of the main and first impressions I would have of the archival book would be the way in which the book presents itself. In my opinion, our version of Frankenstein and one of the pieces, The Devil’s Brood, had the largest impact on the reader because of the depictions on the outside covers before even reading either book. Even though The Devil’s Brood’scover has multiple images of various fictional characters such as Dracula, Universal monster, and Frankenstein, it connects all the “evil” characters for the reader. Whereas Frankenstein: or the Modern Prometheus front cover was simple by just having a black background with the word Frankenstein written in a stacked format. This version does not give the reader any insight to what “Frankenstein” might look like which gives the reader free rein to create their own depiction themselves.
The 1953 paperback of Frankenstein had the most lasting impression on me. Its physical characteristics were what made this book unique as well as the audience that this book attracts. The front cover did not have anything on it at all and it was pocket sized. This alone said a lot about the book because it gave no insight to the reader as to what this book was going to be about. The book’s size did though relate to the audience it was reaching out to in my opinion because it was intended to be a children’s book or a easily, portable traveler’s edition. The hand drawn images of Frankenstein inside the front cover of the book did give the reader an image of what this character looked like. These sketches were only in black and white. Even though I cannot confirm that the audience was to be children, I do know that by just looking at the images I would not have associated this book to be advertised to children. Therefore, I would associate its size to be in a form that is easy to handle like for those who travel. After the visit to Wilson Library, I do feel as if I am able to better understand and pay attention to detail when analyzing the characteristics of novels.