About this ebook
Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein when she was just nineteen years old, as part of a competition with her husband, the writer Percy Shelley, and other writer friends. The eccentric Dr. Victor Frankenstein creates life from assembled body parts, only to realise his creature is an abomination. He casts the monster out, deeply regretting his work. When the monster, despondent at his creator's disgust, attempts to befriend humans, he is rejected – a rejection that leads to violence and great loss for Frankenstein. A thematic indictment of blind ambition and man's fear of the unknown, Frankenstein endures as a classic piece of English literature and the inspiration for countless film and television adaptations.
About the author
Mary Shelley (1797-1851), the only daughter of writers William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, and wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley, is the critically acclaimed author of Frankenstein, Valperga, and The Last Man, in addition to many other works. Mary Shelley's writings reflect and were influenced by a number of literary traditions including Gothic and Romantic ideals, and Frankenstein is widely regarded as the first modern work of science fiction. Today's scholarship of Mary Shelley's writings reveal her to be a political radical, as demonstrated though recurring themes of cooperation and sympathy, particularly among women, in her work, which are in direct conflict with the individual Romantic ideals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
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