Frankenstein is an epistolary novel, meaning its’ story is told through a series of letters. Letter-writing was a critical form of communication for the Victorians, far more so than most people realize.
In the 1800s, without a government-run postal service in the United Kingdom, letters and notes were sent via messenger boys who would travel well-to-do neighborhoods delivering correspondences.. A respectable young lady may receive upwards of a dozen letters in a single day, and responding to such messages was a frequent occupation for many Victorians, particularly women excluded from other social avenues.
Many affluent families even had their own in-house messenger who would deliver their correspondences, and ornate letter openers were used to signify the status and gentility of the writer. Moreso, in the early to mid-1800s, books were printed in reams of uncut paper sealed on the outward-facing side. While these pages would have been severed at the printer’s, missed cuts were common, forcing readers to cut many of the pages themselves. For the young Mary Shelley, a similar letter opener to the one you now hold was sure to have been found nestled among the books, pages of prose, and letters from friends and family that covered her desk.
