For my commonplace book, I decided to examine how Victorian authors portrayed monsters in their novels. I chose this angle because, although I would consider myself someone who knows quite a bit about modern monsters, I was unfamiliar with their Victorian counterparts. Additionally, while I do enjoy a good monster story, I’d never really thought about what is supposed to make them terrifying and unnerving. My goal for this commonplace book was to address these two areas so I could better understand some of the original literary monsters and the realities that inspired them.
In reviewing my commonplace book, there were two entries that stuck out as clear favorites to me, but for different reasons. The first was “Entry 9: Elusivity of the Monster,” which was written after we finished reading The Beetle by Richard Marsh. In this entry, I wrote about how the monster is always one step ahead of the protagonists, and by the end, I felt it was unclear who actually came out on top. What I thought was most interesting about this entry was a set of four illustrations done by John Williamson in 1897 that accompanied The Beetle and exemplified this point. Many times when I was trying to figure out what to include in my commonplace book, I looked for images to inspire me, and these illustrations stood out amongst the many book covers and pictures of live beetles. Upon looking into the origins of these illustrations, I realized they either had to be published in the book itself or on their own shortly after the book was published which speaks to this work’s popularity at the time. I also felt like these images highlighted what scenes were important for readers to visualize, and seeing as most depicted some sort of investigation, it was clear that mystery was the focus, not the monster.
The second entry that was a favorite of mine was “Entry 10: The Monster Enters Reality.” I wrote this entry shortly after starting Dracula by Bram Stoker, and to be honest, I had really formed an opinion about the book at this point. However, I remembered a podcast, called Lore, that I used to listen to back in late middle school and early high school, and that told true stories of people afflicted with monsters. In the first episode, which I miraculously remembered the details of, a case of apparent vampires was covered, and while I was relistening, I noticed that this story took place a few years before Stoker wrote Dracula. I like this entry a lot because it is one of the only entries where I fell down a rabbit hole of vampire origins while I was researching my source. I also appreciate this entry because it helped me to rediscover a podcast I used to love a long time ago that I forgot about as life got more complicated.
Something that I really appreciated about this project was getting the chance to just explore what was interesting to me every week. Even though I did stick with a theme, I felt like it focused my exploration, rather than impeded it, the latter of which I was afraid would happen when we started out. However, I think it was really important for me to learn about where some of our modern monsters come from and why they are monsters in our eyes.
