Frankenstein
Books | Fiction / Horror
3.8
(788)
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
* This book publication is unique which includes exclusive Introduction, Historical Background and handcrafted additional content. * This edition also includes detailed Biography. * This edition has been corrected for spelling and grammatical errors.Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, is a novel written by English author Mary Shelley about eccentric scientist Victor Frankenstein, who creates a grotesque creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty. The first edition was published anonymously in London in 1818. Shelley's name appears on the second edition, published in France in 1823.Shelley had travelled through Europe in 1814, journeying along the river Rhine in Germany with a stop in Gernsheim which is just 17 km (10 mi) away from Frankenstein Castle, where two centuries before an alchemist was engaged in experiments. Later, she traveled in the region of Geneva (Switzerland)-where much of the story takes place-and the topics of galvanism and other similar occult ideas were themes of conversation among her companions, particularly her lover and future husband, Percy Shelley. Mary, Percy, Lord Byron, and John Polidori decided to have a competition to see who could write the best horror story. After thinking for days, Shelley dreamt about a scientist who created life and was horrified by what he had made; her dream later evolved into the story within the novel.Frankenstein is infused with elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement and is also considered to be one of the earliest examples of science fiction. Brian Aldiss has argued that it should be considered the first true science fiction story, because unlike in previous stories with fantastical elements resembling those of later science fiction, the central character "makes a deliberate decision" and "turns to modern experiments in the laboratory" to achieve fantastic results. It has had a considerable influence across literature and popular culture and spawned a complete genre of horror stories, films, and plays.Since publication of the novel, the name "Frankenstein" is often used to refer to the monster itself, as is done in the stage adaptation by Peggy Webling. This usage is sometimes considered erroneous, but usage commentators regard the monster sense of "Frankenstein" as well-established and an acceptable usage. In the novel, the monster is identified via words such as "creature", "monster", "fiend", "wretch", "vile insect", "daemon", "being", and "it". Speaking to Victor Frankenstein, the monster refers to himself as "the Adam of your labours", and elsewhere as someone who "would have" been "your Adam", but is instead "your fallen angel."
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More Details:
Author
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Pages
148
Publisher
Millennium Publications.
Published Date
2014
ISBN
1503262421 9781503262423
Community ReviewsSee all
"The book of my high school years is thought provoking and greatly written. "
G B
Gavin Brooks
"I found this classic tedious to get through."
R T
Rebekah Travis
"Frankenstein is a classic horror story in all it's glory, I get that, but I still couldn't find out a true reason for which to like it at all. I came to this book because of the author, Mary Shelley, who has her life romanticized just as much as her novel and so I took to myself to give it a go. <br/>The story itself is very interesting when placed in it's time and age. You can definitely feel the fear of the unknown boundaries of science and it's struggle against god and religion. Unfortunately, it is this focus on religion what really made me lose all connection with the book. <br/>There is too much guilt placed on Victor and much of it stems from the fact that he is a scientist and the tabboos surrounding his investigations. Because his investigations go against moral, he is against god, because he is against god he is an heretic, because he is an heretic he should burn in hell.<br/>I really cannot relate to any of those feelings of guilt since I was born in an era where such tabboos have long since been gone and despite the fact that it is just a book I could not get involved with the story at all. The fact that the weather sorrounding Victor changes accordingly to his emotional state didn't help at all either. It made me feel like I was half reading the diary of a teenager.<br/>Despite all my ranting, there is a reason this book is called a classic, the theme was never treated before and just because of that it is worth reading. So I just hope you have a better experience than mine."
"Finally<br/><br/>It was my own stubbornness that kept me going, that fueled me to finish this book. When, in reality, I wanted to drop it within the first chapter. But no, I wanted to be able to say I've read a classic - that I was truly a bookworm. <br/><br/>What can I say about Frankenstein? <br/>It is dry.<br/>It goes into details about things I was not interested in - like what about the engineering of the monster? I want to hear about the grisly details - how were the parts obtained, how were they put together, how was "the monster" reanimated? <br/>But no, I got description after description of how many times Frankenstein fainted, how lovely his cousin (but not cousin) is, and how unwell he was. Frankenstein just whined... a lot, and refused to step up as a creator to his monster. For stars sake - he literally left the monster right after he created him! <br/><br/>I don't know, man. I'm not going to waste any more time on this book by trying to type up an eloquent review. It was not my cup of tea."
V H
Valerie Hansel
"Well. This was way less exciting than I expected. Even the exciting parts just kind of happened before there was time to react. But, considering the source and era I'm going to leave the boring parts alone.<br/><br/>Where did we get the modern day myth and description of Frankenstein? Through the movies? How did they get everything so grossly wrong? Penny Dreadful did a better job of depicting Frankenstein's creature (and their feelings toward each other) than the movies did. The PD version, so much more like the fiend in Frankenstein's tale, is intelligent, wrathful, strong, curious, and deeply, deeply, hurt. I believe what struck me more than anything else in this tale was his early childish faith and hope in everything, and his heartbreaking pain to have his every good act thrown back into his face simply because of his appearance. I can't really blame him for his actions once he realized what had happened to him. <br/><br/>I have always despised the person of Dr. Frankenstein as a selfish, spoiled person with no real sense of compassion or care, except as it pertained to his own existence. You would think that someone who was smart enough to CREATE LIFE would have had a clue, or a better sense of responsibility than to just weakly run away from something he created. Who can blame the monster for his course of action? This of course requires a longer discussion, but I'm out of time so that was my two cents' worth."
K H
Kimberly Harper
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