"In this house I chanced to find a volume of the works of Cornelius Agrippa." (21)Cornelius Agrippa was a German Sceptic who had a major impact on Frankenstein's life. Agrippa's work got Frankenstein extremely interested in alchemy (a combination of philosophy and pseudoscience). The main idea of this was to transform ordinary metals into precious gold. However, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein twisted this theory into one of his own; turning dead bodies into a living creature.
Random fact: Some believe that Agrippa summoned demons on his on death bed and a black dog appeared. Possibly the same dog appeared in the Harry Potter series as a grim.
http://www.english.upenn.edu/Projects/knarf/Gifs/agrippa2.gif
But, Sirius Black was the Grim all along.
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