[One of the intriguing but insoluble questions of Faraday studies is whether he ever read Frankenstein, which was of course published in the year the essay-circle was formed. Faraday's taste for novels is well attested, but it is very difficult to be certain about which he read, beyond a few dating mainly from his later years, during which time Faraday told a friend that he liked ‘stirring’ novels, ‘with plenty of life, plenty of action, and very little philosophy. Why, I can do the philosophy for myself.’ His religious beliefs seem not to have greatly affected his choice of novels (he read and enjoyed at least one sensation novel with a highly coloured plot centring on murder— Paul Ferroll, written by ‘V’ and published in 1855), though his passionately anti-paranormal views could affect his pleasure in reading fiction, as when he objected to the fantastic elements in the final chapters of Jane Eyre. There can be little doubt, at any rate, that Faraday would have been acquainted with the story of Shelley's novel, given its debt to Faraday's early mentor, Humphry Davy, and its high profile in popular culture more generally.

Regardless of how direct Faraday's knowledge of the novel was, there are interesting comparisons to be made between ideas about self-education, class and enfranchisement in Frankenstein and the Mental Exercises. These two otherwise vastly different contemporary texts share a concern with the effects of outsider status on intelligent and inquiring people, as well as with what it is that distinguishes a cultivated from an uncultivated person. Most importantly, both the essay-circle and Mary Shelley explore the possibilities of constructing identity from surrounding materials—in the case of Frankenstein, biological materials and, in that of Faraday and his friends, cultural ones.

The extracts from the novel reprinted below contrast the formal, scientific, public education which Frankenstein receives at Ingolstadt with the informal, literary, private education which the creature picks up while he is living in the De Laceys’ shed. There are, however, similarities as well as contrasts to be drawn between the educational experiences of the two characters.