Frankenstein Castle: The Possible Inspiration For Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
FacebookThough it’s debated whether Frankenstein Castle inspired Mary Shelley, it certainly has a creepy backstory.
In a preface to an 1831 edition of her novel, Frankenstein, Mary Shelley described how a dream had inspired her to write: “I saw — with shut eyes, but acute mental vision — I saw the pale student of the unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion…”
Frankenstein has since become one of the world’s best-known horror stories. And some believe that Shelley drew inspiration from the next creepy place on our list, the Frankenstein Castle in Mühltal, Germany.
In 1814, Shelley and her new husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, passed through the nearby German town Gernsheim on their way back home to England after they eloped in France and traveled to Switzerland. They spent about three hours in the German town, and thus it’s likely that Shelley noticed the 13th-century castle looming in the distance. She may have also heard stories about its most infamous resident, Johann Konrad Dippel.
Public Domain Johann Konrad Dippel’s unusual experiments may have inspired Mary Shelley before she wrote her novel.
A physician and alchemist, Dippel was born at the castle in 1673. Gifted but combative, he was accused of killing a man in a duel while working as a philosophy lecturer at Wittenberg and Strasbourg. He fled to Giessen University — where he had previously studied — and sank deeper into his study of alchemy, determined to turn lead into gold.
Dippel also experimented with animal parts, mixing together leather, blood, and horns into a concoction he dubbed “Dippel’s Oil.” He claimed that this invention was an “elixir of life” and insisted that it would help him live until the age of 135. In fact, Dippel died at the age of 61 in 1734 — possibly of a stroke, but some believe he was actually poisoned instead.
Strange rumors dogged him in death, including that he’d stolen bodies from local graveyards and experimented with electricity. Some even whispered that he’d hoped to transfer souls between dead bodies. Though it’s unknown if this is true — or even if Shelley heard these rumors — there’s no doubt that Frankenstein Castle remains a creepy place to visit.
