Frankenstein

Frankenstein

by Shelley (Author)

Synopsis

'I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion.' A summer evening's ghost stories, lonely insomnia in a moonlit Alpine's room, and a runaway imagination -- fired by philosophical discussions with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley about science, galvanism, and the origins of life -- conspired to produce for Mary Shelley this haunting night specter. By morning, it had become the germ of her Romantic masterpiece, Frankenstein. Written in 1816 when she was only 19, Mary Shelley's novel of 'The Modern Prometheus' chillingly dramatized the dangerous potential of life begotten upon a laboratory table. A frightening creation myth for our own time, Frankenstein remains one of the greatest horror stories ever written and is an undisputed classic of its kind.

$30.64

Quantity

20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 332
Edition: New ed of 1818 ed
Publisher: Chicago University Press
Published: 01 Mar 1982

ISBN 10: 0226752275
ISBN 13: 9780226752273

Author Bio
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851) was the daughter of novelist and political philosopher William Godwin and radical writer and pioneer of women's rights Mary Wollstonecraft, who died when Mary was an infant. Though she received no formal education, many of England's leading writers and intellectuals were frequent guests in her father's house. In 1814, she met the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley; the two were married in 1816. Shelley wrote many novels and remarkable essays and rambles or travel books during her lifetime, though she is best known for Frankenstein: Or a Modern Prometheus, which she first published anonymously in 1818 and subsequently revised and republished in 1823 and 1831. Shelley's other novels include Valperga (1823), The Last Man (1826), Lodore (1835), and Falkner (1837). Her novella, Maurice, or The Fisher's Cot was not published until 1998.