Joseph Priestley, 1733-1804, a founder of modern chemistry particularly noted for
his discovery of oxygen, was a friend of Mary Shelley's father Godwin in the 1790s.

An interesting phrase, suggesting Victor Frankenstein's mature awareness of his own
limitations as well as Mary Shelley's compassionate sense of human fallibility, a
characteristic that, since it is commonly shared, might well serve as a universal
restraint upon human overreaching.

Walton refers to previous explorers of the northern wilderness. Sir John Ross, in
the Introduction to his Narrative of a Second Voyage in Search of a north-west passage
and of a residence in the Arctic Regions during the years 1829, 1830, 1831, 1832,
and 1833 (London: Webster, 1835), pp. i-xxiv provides a useful, near-contemporary
history of such expeditions.