Frankenstein; or, The modern Prometheus

A little about the story

Victor Frankenstein’s fascination with the workings of life leads him far beyond the ordinary ambitions of a young student. Shut away from friends and family, he pursues an experiment that promises extraordinary discovery. Yet the moment his creation begins to live, scientific triumph gives way to fear, and Victor retreats from the responsibility his achievement has brought into the world.

The consequences draw creator and creation into a troubled relationship shaped by loneliness, rejection, and competing accounts of what each is owed. Moving from domestic rooms and university laboratories to mountains and polar ice, Mary Shelley gives the story an unsettling sense of scale. Its horror comes as much from failures of sympathy as from the experiment itself. The novel asks what people owe to the beings they bring into dependence on them, and how easily the desire to achieve something remarkable can become an excuse for refusing to face its human cost.

Things You May Not Know About Frankenstein

• Born from a ghost-story challenge. Shelley began developing the story during the famous gathering near Lake Geneva in the summer of 1816.
• First published without her name. The original 1818 edition appeared anonymously; Shelley’s identity was made explicit in later editions of the novel.
• Two important versions. Shelley revised the novel for the 1831 edition, so modern readers may encounter significantly different versions of the text.
• The creature has no personal name. Frankenstein is the scientist’s surname, not a name the novel gives to the being he creates.
• Stories inside stories. Letters from Arctic explorer Robert Walton frame Victor’s account, which in turn makes room for the creature’s own testimony.