I've heard that rubbish before as well re Mary didn't write it. I'd forgotten about the pregnancy loss, which as you say would have had a profound impact on a psyche dealing with questions about life and death, and what truly constitutes either. One can just imagine Mary and the poets sitting around a fire, a little high on wine and/or opium and engaging in such deeply philosophical debates.

The obvious intelligence of the monster in the novel is indeed a stark contrast to the bumbling malformed brain of the Karloff (and virtually every movie version) monster. I can see why the movies simplify and justify the violence the monster commits (with the criminal brain error), but in the book, when the monster starts to reason that his actions were wrong, his moral compass takes him away from civilisation and it is Frankenstein, the so-called rational man, who then pursues with only thoughts of vengeance. It is impossible not to feel sympathy for the Monster, even knowing the murders he had committed as he lashed out at a world that had only given him pain and betrayal.

That said, I do love the Karloff style of portrayal as well and even here, when played well (rather than the shlock-horror of the Hammer versions) you had to feel for the Monster rather more than Frankenstein. It was interesting to me that the Marvel Comics version, in both the colour and the black & white comics, went somewhere down the middle of both versions and made him an unwilling but constant (and always misunderstood) hero.

This was a theme taken on in the movie 'I, Frankenstein', with Aaron Eckhart, in which he becomes more of an unwilling superhero. It had some interesting angles and it's a shame that we didn't get to see the series of films that were planned. Personally, I think it should have been a TV series of films rather than released at theatres as the big screen really lay bare the issues with the story and set scenes. I saw it on the small screen later and it came across far better than I remembered.

I still haven't seen the Brannagh version which is supposed to be closer to the book. I may need to do so now, especially as we're heading for Halloween!