Frankenstein
The Modern Prometheus: 1818 Original Text
Authored by Mary Shelley
Archival Synopsis
Mary Shelley's gothic masterpiece chronicles Victor Frankenstein's fateful discovery of the secret of animation, and the tragic catastrophe that unfolds when he abandons the sentient being he created.
“Shelley constructed a myth for the modern technological age. Frankenstein is astonishing not for its shocks, but for the eloquence of the creature's philosophical lament.”
“Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.”
“I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel.”
Table of Contents
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Pioneer of Gothic Speculative Fiction • Romanticism / Early Victorian
The daughter of pioneering feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and philosopher William Godwin, Mary Shelley was raised in a crucible of radical intellectual ferment. In the rainy summer of 1816 at Villa Diodati alongside Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, she conceived Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. Shelley’s masterwork transcends monster folklore, exploring the ethical perils of unchecked science, parental abandonment, and the agony of alienation.
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