Frankenstein became very popular, particularly after Richard Brinsley Peake's dramatic adaptation in 1823. Throughout the nineteenth century, references to the novel appear in a great many novels and poems, sometimes in serious allusions, sometimes in facetious references. The following list is far from exhaustive.

The century-long success of the stage adaptations of Frankenstein made it a natural choice for filmmakers. The list of movies based, however indirectly, on Mary Shelley's novel stretches into the hundreds. The first film treatment of the novel was a seven-minute silent short from the Edison Film Company, entitled simply Frankenstein (1910). It was followed by a number of silent movies, including Life Without Soul (1915) and Il Mostro di Frankenstein (1920). But the silents were merely preludes to the explosion of cinematic Frankensteins.

Volume I

The English ship's captain Robert Walton, in a series of letters to his sister Margaret Saville in England, describes the initial stages of his nautical journey to the North Pole (I: L1). While sailing north of Archangel in Russia, Walton's ship becomes trapped in arctic ice. From across the frozen sea, the sailors spot a gigantic figure on a dog-sled crossing the ice (I: L4: 3), and later see a haggard, wild-eyed man who is pursuing him, stranded with his dogsled on an ice floe. They take him on board.