And now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and

“And now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper. I have an affection for it, for it was the offspring of happy days, when death and grief were but words, which found no true echo in my heart.” Thus wrote Mary Shelley, the mother of one of literature’s most haunting creations—Frankenstein’s monster. In these words, she speaks not merely as an author, but as a woman gazing back upon her own past, her own lost innocence. Here, she names her book a “hideous progeny,” for it was born of imagination’s fire, but also of the darker chambers of the soul. Yet in the same breath, she blesses it with affection, as a mother blesses her flawed child, sending it into the world despite its deformity.

This quote comes from the 1831 preface to the revised edition of Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, published thirteen years after the novel’s first appearance. By then, Mary Shelley had lived through sorrow deep enough to age a heart forever. When she first wrote Frankenstein in 1816, she was young and surrounded by brilliance—her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, her friend Lord Byron, and the shimmering atmosphere of art and intellect that swirled around Lake Geneva. It was during those “happy days,” as she calls them, that she dreamed the story of a man who tried to play God, who gave life to the lifeless and reaped ruin for his hubris. But by 1831, those radiant days were gone. Percy Shelley had drowned in the sea, her children had died one by one, and Mary herself was left in a solitude shaped by grief.

When she writes, “I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper,” she addresses her creation—the novel itself—as though it were a living being, a child born from her imagination and sorrow. The “hideous progeny” is both literal and symbolic: the creature in her book, and the book itself, misunderstood, feared, and yet alive in a world that often rejects its maker. She calls it hideous not because she despises it, but because she recognizes its power—the unsettling reflection it holds up to humanity. Like the monster, her story is unnatural, stitched together from nightmares, yet it breathes with truth. And like the creature, it carries the burden of being misunderstood.

Yet beneath the melancholy lies tenderness. Mary Shelley says, “I have an affection for it, for it was the offspring of happy days.” These words carry the ache of nostalgia, the kind that comes when one looks back upon youth’s lost garden. For in the years since her book’s birth, she had come to know death and grief, and their echoes had filled her heart. The innocence that once birthed her art had been replaced by experience, and she could no longer write with the same bright ignorance of suffering. Still, she honors her creation as a relic of that time—a time before sorrow had deepened her into wisdom. In this way, her words are both lament and benediction.

In her reflection, we see a deeper truth about creation and loss. Every artist, every parent, every maker of things must one day release their creation into the world, knowing it will walk paths they cannot follow. The child of the mind, like the child of the body, must leave its home and meet both praise and condemnation. Mary Shelley knew this pain well, for her “child” was one that disturbed the world. Frankenstein was condemned by some as monstrous, praised by others as genius. Yet even in the face of rejection, she sent it forth again, saying, “Go forth and prosper.” Her act is one of courage, of love without possession—the act of one who understands that to create is to let go.

Her words also contain a profound meditation on innocence and suffering. When she wrote Frankenstein, she had not yet been broken by grief, and so death was still a concept, not a wound. Later, when her life was marked by loss, she could see how naïve she once was, and yet she cherished that naivety—it was the soil from which her creativity had sprung. There is a lesson here for all who live and create: that art, wisdom, and compassion are shaped by both joy and sorrow. The light of imagination shines brightest when it has passed through the shadow of pain.

So, O listener, take this truth to heart: the things you create—your work, your words, your deeds—will not remain yours forever. They will go into the world and live their own lives, shaped by forces beyond your control. Some will flourish; others will be misunderstood. Yet love them still. Let them go forth, as Mary Shelley did her “hideous progeny.” And when the world grows dark, when sorrow comes to dwell where joy once sang, do not despise your earlier self, that innocent dreamer who had not yet known loss. For it was that self who built the foundation upon which your deeper wisdom now stands.

In the end, Mary Shelley’s words remind us that every act of creation—whether a book, a dream, a love, or a life itself—is both beautiful and terrifying, both fragile and immortal. To create is to confront our own power, our own mortality, and to dare, as she did, to breathe life into the unknown. So when your own “progeny”—your works, your choices, your children—depart from you, send them forth with courage and with blessing. Say, as she did, not in pride but in humble love: “Go forth and prosper.” For even what is born in darkness may yet carry the light of your soul into eternity.