Frankenstein the 1818 Text

By the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window-shutters, I beheld the wretch-the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened... Frankenstein is the most celebrated horror story ever written. It tells the dreadful tale of Victor Frankenstein, a visionary young student of natural philosophy, who discovers the secret of life. In the grip of his obsession he constructs a being from dead body parts, and animates this creature. The results, for Victor and for his family, are catastrophic. Written when Mary Shelley was just eighteen, Frankenstein was inspired by the ghost stories and vogue for Gothic literature that fascinated the Romantic writers of her time. She transformed these supernatural elements an epic parable that warned against the threats to humanity posed by accelerating technological progress. Published for the 200th anniversary, this edition, based on the original 1818 text, explains in detail the turbulent intellectual context in which Shelley was writing, and also investigates how her novel has since become a byword for controversial practices in science and medicine, from manipulating ecosystems to vivisection and genetic modification. As an iconic study of power, creativity, and, ultimately, what it is to be human, Frankenstein continues to shape our thinking in profound ways to this day.

Product details

• Authors: Mary Shelley, Mary W Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
• Assisted by: Maryli Butler (Editor), Marylin Butler (Editor), Nick Groom (Editor), Groom Nick (Editor)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press Trade
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 03.10.2019
• EAN: 9780198840824
• ISBN: 978-0-19-884082-4
• Dimensions: 129 mm x 196 mm x 14 mm
• Series: World's classics; Oxford World's Classics; Oxford World's Classics; World's classics
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; FICTION / Classics, Classic fiction (pre c 1945), FICTION / Science Fiction / General, FICTION / Ghost, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 19th Century, 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899, Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900, Classic horror & ghost stories, Classic science fiction, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, Classic horror and ghost stories, Classic fiction: general and literary, LITERARY CRITICISM / Novel as Form