Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus was published anonymously 200 years ago in January, 1818.

When was Frankenstein originally published anonymously?

In 1818 when Frankenstein was first published anonymously, with a preface by Percy Bysshe Shelley, most reviewers assumed he had written it himself, except for those who suspected that it was written by someone even less experienced than he, perhaps the daughter of a famous novelist, as Mary Shelley was.

Why did Mary Shelley publish Frankenstein anonymously at first?

She didn't put her name on her book—she published “Frankenstein” anonymously, in 1818, not least out of a concern that she might lose custody of her children—and she didn't give her monster a name, either. “This anonymous androdaemon,” one reviewer called it.