Frankenstein; or, the modern prometheus
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Frankenstein; or, the modern prometheus
30 chapters·8h 17m listening
3.92from 1,993,912 ratingson Goodreads
A student at Ingolstadt discovers how to give life to dead matter, assembles a man of enormous size, and flees the room the moment it opens its eyes. The creature is left to learn language, kindness and hatred on its own, and comes back to ask its maker for one thing. Mary Shelley began it at eighteen, in a wet summer by a lake.
About the book
First published anonymously in 1818, Frankenstein is framed by the letters of Arctic explorer Robert Walton, who encounters Victor Frankenstein during his expedition. Victor recounts how an intense study of natural philosophy and science led him to pursue the creation of life, and how his response to success shaped everything that followed. Mary Shelley gives both creator and creature room to speak, complicating any simple division between victim and monster. The novel asks what people owe to those they bring into the world, how rejection changes a person, and where responsibility lies when ambition is pursued without regard for its human consequences.
Characters
Victor Frankenstein — Protagonist
A gifted young Genevan whose pursuit of the secret of life becomes an all-consuming private experiment.
The Creature — Victor’s creation
An intelligent being abandoned by his creator and forced to understand society from its margins.
Robert Walton — Arctic explorer
An ambitious explorer whose letters frame Victor’s account and reflect his own hunger for achievement.
Elizabeth Lavenza — Victor’s companion
Victor’s beloved childhood companion, raised within the Frankenstein household in Geneva.
Henry Clerval — Victor’s friend
Victor’s generous childhood friend, drawn to languages, literature and the wider human world.
Alphonse Frankenstein — Victor’s father
Victor’s caring father, committed to his family and concerned by his son’s prolonged distress.
William Frankenstein — Victor’s brother
Victor’s youngest brother, a cherished child within the close Frankenstein family.
About the author
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851) was an English novelist and the author of Frankenstein, which she began at eighteen. The idea came from a ghost-story competition among friends during the cold, sunless summer of 1816 at Lake Geneva, and the novel she made of it — a creature abandoned by the man who made it — is often called the first work of science fiction. She was the daughter of the philosopher William Godwin and the writer Mary Wollstonecraft, who died days after her birth. After her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley drowned she supported herself by writing, publishing The Last Man and editing his poetry into the form it is read in today.