Novel
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
Mary Shelley · 1818
Opening lines
You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
An explorer whose ship is trapped in the Arctic ice picks up, on a drifting block of ice, an exhausted man who is pursuing someone. This man tells his story: as a student at Ingolstadt, he discovered the secret of life and animated a being assembled from materials taken from charnel houses and dissecting rooms. Horrified, he flees; when he returns, the creature has disappeared. Nearly two years later, on the Sea of Ice, it comes to meet him: it has taught itself to speak and read by spying on a family, and it has a request to make of him.
Context
The book appeared on 1 January 1818, without an author's name, in five hundred copies and in three volumes, with a preface written by the husband of the woman who had written it and a dedication to her father. Walter Scott, to whom the husband had sent the book, believed it to be his. Her name appeared on an English title page only in the second edition, five years later, thanks to the success of a stage adaptation; a French translation had named her as early as 1821. The third edition, in 1831, was recast by her; some critics see in it a softening of her boldness, and many editions follow its text.
Who it is for
A novel of nested narratives, opened and closed by the letters of an explorer. The creature in it is literate and speaks, contrary to the image the cinema has fixed of it.
Prizes and reception
Often regarded as the first science fiction novel; a theatrical adaptation of 1823 made it a success and established the author's name.
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