Highlights of Students' Explorations (cont')
We know that there were many changes between the two editions — that Victor and
Elizabeth are cousins, for example in 1818, but brother and adopted sister in the
1831 edition 
— and then textual variations, such as Walton's Letter 4:
Apparently, Mary Shelley felt that her 1818 readers didn't get that Walton was supposed to be a foil for Victor, so, in 1831, she added to Victor's statements to Walton, "'Unhappy man! Do you share my madness?" As far as encouraging readers to compare the two as foils, that addition really is like hitting readers over the head with reading instructions....
Here we compare the terms used to describe Victor's Creation in the 1831 edition
(Gutenberg). The Voyant window below is live so you can explore the
data yourself, change parameters, search terms, etc. As you can see in the case of
the default paramters, "dun" marks the Creature’s Creation. Epithets used to
describe the Creation increase after the Creation’s animation, as expected, but
there are two peaks, one about ⅓ through, the other towards the end.
The first peak is likely when Victor meets his Creation on Montanvert, and the second peak occurs when [spoilers, highlight to read]: Victor dies and the Creation boards Walton’s ship.
The following visualizations show the frequency (count) of the words indicated (red,
green) as the novel progresses. They were generated using the Gutenberg 1831
edition:
Graph 1: RED = fear; GREEN =
happy
Graph 2: RED = despair;
GREEN = joy
Another term comparison (1818 edition):
