Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Written by Mary Shelley

Narrated by Cathy Dobson

Mary Shelley's classic gothic horror novel. The scientific young genius, Frankenstein, discovers a method for creating life in inanimate objects and sets about a project to build a human in his laboratory. He is successful in his aim, but in so doing, unleashes on the world a creature whose physical deformities make him repulsive to everyone who sets eyes on him. Starved of human affection, the monster becomes increasingly vindictive and violent, and turns the full force of his superhuman powers to the task of revenging himself on his own creator. At first Frankenstein is unaware of the fiend pursuing him. But soon the ghastly horror of his situation becomes terrifying clear... and the only solution is to find and destroy the monster, before he wreaks havoc on the entire world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Door Consulting
• Release date: Apr 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781467668910

Mary Shelley

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was born in 1797, the daughter of two of the leading radical writers of the age. Her mother died just days after her birth and she was educated at home by her father and encouraged in literary pursuits. She eloped with and subsequently married the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, but their life together was full of hardship. The couple were ruined by disapproving parents and Mary lost three of her four children. Although its subject matter was extremely dark, her first novel Frankenstein (1818) was an instant sensation. Subsequent works such as Mathilda (1819), Valperga (1823) and The Last Man (1826) were less successful but are now finally receiving the critical acclaim that they deserve.

Reviews for Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

[bohemima · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The book is different from the movie.How often have we heard and said that? In the case of Frankenstein the differences even more difficult than usual. The classic horror movie with Karloff is, oddly, more true to the essential message of the novel than one might expect—although the plot details are way off.We start with a framing device: Frankenstein has been rescued by a ship’s captain from the frozen waters of the far north. He (Frankenstein) tells his awful (in all senses of the word) tale. Frankenstein’s unhealthy curiosity and hubris lead him to create a “man.” This well-meaning, if bizarre, experiment doesn’t go well. Horror, murder, and mayhem ensue.But this isn’t just a Gothic romance designed to thrill the heart of the innocent reader. Instead it’s a study of what happens to a creature who is feared, hated, and rejected by everyone, including his creator. The reader soon realizes that if the Creature had been afforded even a modicum of compassion and understanding none of the evil would have ensued. This idea is well-realized in the movie from the 1930’s.Frankenstein is often read as a study in hubris and pride; the doctor is seen as impious at best and Saranic at worst. None of this is supported by the text.The book retains its suspense and compulsion to keep turning the pages even on a third or fourth reading. An excellent moral tale, couched in enough melodrama to please any lover of sensational fiction. There’s nothing prurient or gross to keep it from young or sensitive readers. Highly recommended.

[bookworm546 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

a good book tended to drag on a bit in some places very opposite from the movie perception of frakenstein

[tess_w · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a great version of the classic. It is so much better written than the classic Dracula. Victor Frankenstein creates a hideous being from corpses. This monster, after failing to receive acceptance because of his appearance, kills those beloved by its creator. His demand is that Frankenstein build a mate for him. Frankenstein refuses and the monster then destroys everything the Dr. loves. He also destroys Frankenstein’s sanity. It’s obvious that the author was well-educated because her choice of words was superior to most other writers that one reads.

[tankexmortis · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Horribly mistreated by critics and analysts who won't allow the work to stand on it's own and insist on dissecting it until it's beauty can no longer be seen. Beautifully written, certainly a classic, and among my favorite books. But I wish people would stop trying to chop it up.

[aspirit-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I didn't finish this story, perhaps because I'd tired of Victorian/Gothic fiction by the time I'd started reading this novel. Perhaps, it was because I hadn't expected a frame story about how the hedonistic Dr. Frankenstein created a person on whim, abandoned him, and refused to take responsibility even as his creation showed an infantile inability to move on from his traumatic rebirth without guidance.

Half-way through the story, I was rooting for someone to shove the doctor off a cliff and help Frankenstein's monster to become a self-sufficient man. I doubt the end is that cheerful.

There is a strong possibility that this story can be a trigger from adults who'd suffered neglect and abandonment in childhood. I appreciate that Shelley wrote a story that can elicit strong emotions through its plot, but it was too difficult to continue at times. I felt that too much of the story was told from Dr. Frankenstein's point of view (POV), making the section from the unnamed monster's POV more painful.

One day, I'll try reading all the way through with different expectations.

[mattries37315 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Nearly 200 years ago, Mary Shelley described how Victor Frankenstein achieved the seemingly impossible in creating life and how afterwards both he and his creation hurtled into a downward spiral. “Frankenstein” was the first piece of literature that would later become part of the science fiction genre through its protagonist’s use of science, but it is also the ethical and moral issues in the said use as well.The central moment story is well-known thanks to films and other popular adaptations, though the details are different. Victor Frankenstein, the supreme student of science, forms a creature over two years through obsessive work but only upon bringing it to life does he realize how monstrous he has formed it. The shock of his actions cause his health to fail him and he never truly recovers as his creation ever continues to plague both his mental and physical health until he dies of exhaustion. Yet, Frankenstein’s creature is equal shocked, first at his own existence and then with the realization that he is not human and monstrously so.The unnamed creature’s struggle towards humanity, achieving language and in-depth thought, is rendered in the end useless without the added element of social involvement with a humanity that shuns him including his own creator. Without the connection to humanity, the creature turns against it and begins taking his revenge the members of the human race most treasured by his creature. After Frankenstein’s rejection to give his creature a female counterpart to share his life, the creature deprives his creator of his new wife. Yet after the death of his creator, the creature seems to realize how human he had become with his utter disregard for life that many real people achieve on their own.While the book is from a different time and standard of literature that make it strange when compared to current books, “Frankenstein” has an element that keeps it as relevant today as it did back when Mary Shelley wrote it. The ethical and moral dilemmas that not only science but everyday life presents to us can take us down many different paths that include the flawed creator or a monster amongst them.

[shanaqui_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I really didn't think much of this the first time, but I think that's partly due to the way culture prepares us for the figure of Frankenstein's monster. He's taken hold of the imagination almost as much as Dracula, but while the two stories share elements of the gothic, and form some basis for the horror genre, I think Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is quite different. It's a work often full of the poetry of the landscape, of nature, and the central questions are philosophical ones. There is no question in the reader's mind about Dracula's monstrosity; but Frankenstein's monster, on the other hand...I'm still not an immense fan of this, but I definitely appreciated it more this time. Considering Mary Shelley's mother, you'd have expected more significant female roles in this, but they're all the ministering angel type. It's interesting to think about why that should be, and if that in itself is actually significant to the story. What could have happened, if Victor had treated Elizabeth as an equal and told her the full story? Perhaps she could find a way to deal with the monster, or find it in her heart to befriend him...I think I know what my essay (for my Coursera SF/F class) will be about, at least. There are so many parallels with Biblical stories, with Milton's Paradise Lost; I think I've noticed one people talk less about.

[bibleblaster · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not the story you'd expect from the late-night "creature features. With the power of myth, Shelley tells the story of Dr. Frankenstein, the life he creates, and the lives he destroys. Makes me wonder about her other novels and what themes she tackled...Seeming only to gain in relevancy to the human condition with each passing year, this story will be with us for a long time.

[truncoxx · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I found this book to be a little boring and extremely predictable. This is obviously because of our culture and knowledge of Frankenstein and not the books fault whatsoever. Considering it was the first true story of Frankenstein, I consider it a good classic. I also love that it came from a woman as a competition amongst a few of her friends. The story is exactly what you expect it to be, very sad and long and a little weird.

[jasonpettus · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)The CCLaP 100: In which I read for the first time a hundred so-called "classics," then write reports on whether or not they deserve the labelEssay #36: Frankenstein (1818), by Mary ShelleyThe story in a nutshell:To truly understand why Mary Shelley's 1818 Frankenstein first had the impact that it did, it's of crucial importance to understand the times in which it was written -- namely, the transitional years between the end of the Enlightenment and the beginning of Romanticism (also known as the "Victorian Age," in that its span largely matches the long reign of England's Queen Victoria), a period in which for the first time, huge amounts of people were starting to question the validity of trying to live one's life through the long-held tenets of rationality, scientific distance and atheism, especially after the disaster known as the French Revolution that had just occurred two decades previous. Certainly this is the main idea driving Shelley's story, the tale of a young aspiring medical student in rural Switzerland, who for lack of knowing better grows up studying and believing in the ideas of the "natural philosophers" and "alchemists" of the 1600s, back when it was sincerely believed that man would eventually figure out a way to turn lead into gold and bring the dead back to life. Even after he gets into a decent university, then, young Victor Frankenstein still can't give up on his dreams of one day creating artificial life out of a collection of spare parts; and indeed, by his twenties he actually succeeds at such a thing, although having to build his particular human much larger than the norm so that he's able to grip all the tiny little pieces involved.But watching his creature move and speak for the first time, Frankenstein becomes horrified by the monstrous abomination against God he's made; and so in typical undergraduate fashion, he simply runs away and tries to pretend that the whole thing never happened, leaving the creature in the woods to fend for itself and just assuming that it'll soon be dead. But surprisingly, the creature ends up thriving as a survivalist, first learning how to speak by loitering on the edges of a rural village, then eavesdropping on the villagers' conversations to realize just how different he is than them. Despondent, the creature eventually tracks Frankenstein down and demands that he build a similarly oversized companion for him, which at first Frankenstein agrees to but then destroys halfway through, queasy at the thought of what kind of damage two such creatures could wreak; and it's at this point that the creature declares a lifelong program of vengeance against Frankenstein for so coldly abandoning him, eventually not only killing half a dozen of the student's acquaintances (including his brother, his father and his wife), but even framing Frankenstein for one of the murders. Incensed, Frankenstein decides to hunt down the creature for his own revenge; this then leads them on a globetrotting chase culminating in a final showdown near the north pole, witnessed by a crew of exploratory sailors which is why it is that we supposedly know of the tale today.The argument for it being a classic:Well, to begin with, there's the simple argument of what a huge influence this has had on popular culture at large, with there now existing thousands of projects that in one way or another riff on either Frankenstein's monster itself or Shelley's general concept of the "mad scientist." (Of course, let's not forget that the vast majority of these are actually riffs on James Whale's infamous 1931 film adaptation, which in reality has very little to do with the book itself -- for example, just look at the differing ways the book and movie deal with one of the story's most famous scenes... BOOK: "One day, when I was oppressed by cold, I found a fire which had been left by some wandering beggars, and was overcome with delight at the warmth I experienced from it. In my joy I thrust my hand into the live embers, but quickly drew it out again with a cry of pain. How strange, I thought, that the same cause should produce such opposite effects." MOVIE: "Fire bad! FIRE BAD!!!") Perhaps the more compelling argument, then, is that it's a perfect record of a very important time in history, a story that very cleverly references not only the events that led to the era before it but also the reasons why that era was eventually rejected; because for those who don't know, the Great Age of Reason initially started with these so-called natural philosophers of the 1600s, who did nothing but observe and replicate the way God worked out in nature, but by the 1800s had evolved into "scientists" who were actively attempting to manipulate and change this natural environment, which more and more people began to see as a mockery of God instead of an exaltation of Him. Although trashed by Enlightenment-trained critics when first coming out, Frankenstein was eagerly eaten up by the gothic-obsessed public at large, making it as powerful a reflection of its time as The DaVinci Code is of ours.The argument against:Not much these days, although for a long time it was argued that Frankenstein is nothing more than a simple piece of lurid entertainment designed for overly dramatic housewives, and not fit for being debated as a piece of literature to begin with. (In fact, I think it telling that when the book was first published anonymously, criticism tended to focus on its actual quality, while after the author's identity became known it was roundly dismissed altogether as "the work of a girl.") But of course, as with all literature, time has a way of profoundly changing our opinion of what constitutes artistic "worth," making this not much of a valid argument anymore.My verdict:As you can imagine, today I quite solidly fall on the side of Frankenstein's fans, although I should give fair warning that this book is very much a product of its early-1800s times, and has a tendency during huge sections to ramble on and on in a kind of flowery prose style that modern ears are not used to. In fact, for those trying to learn more these days about artistic history, I think it's no coincidence that this book was published just a year after the death of Jane Austen, who many consider the last great Enlightenment author; in this respect, then, you can see Shelley as the first of the great Romantic authors, and the 1810s and '20s as the grand changing of the guard among mainstream society between the former age and the latter. The fact is that Romanticism was always as much about one's attitude and lifestyle as it was about the finished works themselves, the age that first posited the idea of the artist as a passionate, tortured soul, traits which Shelley possessed in spades; because for those who don't know, she was not only married to scandalous poet Percy Shelley and kept company with such infamous libertines as Lord Byron (inspiration for the Victorian Age's "Byronic hero"), but even the story itself was apparently inspired by a nightmare after a raucous evening of drugs and medieval German fairytales*, about as Romantic as Romanticism gets. (And let's not even get started on the the autobiographical elements this book supposedly contains, including the argument that the whole thing is a scathing criticism of the way Percy dealt with the miscarriage of their first child.) Creepy, supernatural, concerned mostly with the pouty emotions of moody geniuses, Frankenstein is literally a textbook example of the finest early Romanticism has to offer, and its passionate embrace by the general public was a sign of the sea-change society was to start experiencing just twenty years later.Is it a classic? Yes*And by the way, for a creepily fantastic look at what that night of drugs and fairytales might've looked like, do make sure to check out Ken Russell's 1986 Gothic, one of my absolutely favorite movies when I was a teen.

[jamesmscott-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A classic with a long legacy, and absolutely worth reading. Themes of loneliness and exile stand out to me. The backstory - Mary Shelley's age at writing, her incredibly smart parentage, the Lord Byron connection - is almost as tantalizing as the story. I will never imagine Frankenstein's unnamed "fiend, abhorred devil!" as the green, bolted machine portrayed in film. The true monster was more hideous, and much more pitiable.

[atoponce-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is fantastic. Shelley brings the emotions of betrayal, grief, joy, love, hatred, loneliness, companionship, and so much more to center stage. It's less of a horror, and more of a tragedy. She draws parallels of God and Adam, man and creation, Satan and abandonment. For a book that is over 200 years old, it is very much relevant today.

[collingsruth · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Too much romanticism. And I think the pressure to look at the creature sympathetically pissed me off more than it should.

[futuremrsjoshgroban · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Beautiful writing, hated the story.

[arkrayder · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When I first read Frankenstein as a teenager I found it incredibly boring. But, thankfully I decided to re-read it after having found this edition and could not put it down. Great story, in a way timeless. I will seek out the "uncensored" 1818 version and compare. Fully worth the time it took to read.

[bonniemarjorie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The summer of 1816 was named the “Year Without a Summer” after the eruption of Mount Tambora caused a long and dreary Volcanic Winter. With everyone keeping to the indoors, Mary, her future husband Percy Shelley, Lord Byron and John Polidori all entertained themselves by telling ghost stories and then inevitably it was suggested they each come up with their own type of horror story. It was during this very summer that Mary Shelley, at the age of eighteen, came up with the initial concept of Frankenstein.‘After days and night of incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter.’Frankenstein is the story of Victor Frankenstein, a man that through experiementation in both science and alchemy devised a way to combine pieces of human corpses and give them new life. Frankenstein is a legendary story and has become a pivotal part of our cultural understanding of the supernatural world, however, the novel is actually nothing like the classic movies involving lightning, screaming and Frankenstein actually being excited at his accomplishments.His shock and awe quickly transforms into a horrific realization at what he was capable of and he ran away in terror, leaving the monster alone. We’re told Frankenstein’s story first and the steps that led to the monsters creation and the subsequent events as well. Frankenstein depicts him as a monster, thus the reason he is never given an actual name, but when we are finally given the story via the monsters point of view we realize this ‘monster’ is quite possibly anything but. His is a story of complete despondency that easily garners your compassion regardless of the pain and suffering he has wreaked. He may be a creation but is he still not a person? Is his creators ensuing abandonment to blame for his conduct because Frankenstein had a duty beyond just his creation? I believe it is. Without his creator there to teach him the ways of the world, he was forced to observe, learn and interpret on his own. So then it was his observances of society what transformed him into who he came to be? A matter of circumstance? He became an outcast of society because of his appearance and after a time became lonely and craved a companion. He sought out his creator so as to force him to duplicate his work.This is my first read of the classic and I must say it’s nothing like I was expecting. It ended up being a strange and eclectic blend of genres. It was science fiction, with the creation of a man from pieces of corpses, and it was gothic and horror, the dead coming back to life and wreaking havoc on the world. Neither of those were the sole purpose or point of this story; it only set the scene. At the heart of this story are the revolutionary and intellectual questions about life, death and existence. About scientific possibilities and how far is too far. And it’s about compassion and lack of it in this world. Was Frankenstein’s monster truly an outcast only because of his appearance, because initially he showed the utmost caring towards individuals and even saved a drowning girl at one point. Society saw the monster and judged him harshly based off that alone, never giving him the benefit of the doubt. It’s a fictional accounting of a harsh world but it’s a rather truthful and distressing accounting. This is Gothic literature at its very finest and I’m so glad I finally conquered this incredible piece of work.‘Once I falsely hoped to meet with beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding. I was nourished with high thoughts of honour and devotion. But now crime has degraded me beneath the meanest animal. No guilt, no mischief, no malignity, no misery, can be found comparable to mine. When I run over the frightful catalogue of my sins, I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with sublime transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness.’

[rontyler-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Why did I wait so long to read this? An excellent novel and highly recommended. Wonderful.

[candacevan_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The original novel by Mary Shelley is a very different beast than most of those that have made it to film or TV. There is, for example, no digging up of dead bodies, no talk of reanimation. Rather it would appear that the zealous young scientist has figured out how to animate a constructed being. The monster, or "demon" as he is often called in the book, was made bigger than a man to facilitate the finer aspects of his construction, but he is also represented as being faster, stronger, tougher, and perhaps smarter than most men. While he espouses high ideals, he sees no conflict between those high ideals and murdering of a human being.

In religious terms, the demon is soulless. In psychological terms, he is a sociopath -- although one could argue that his creator did absolutely nothing to nurture him, love him, or inculcate social mores into him. In philosophical terms, he is a terrifying example of man's arrogance and his abrogation of natural law.

This is a remarkable novel for a 19- to 21-year-old woman to have penned. Some argue that, relying on the idea of scientific experimentation, it is the first science fiction novel. If it is a horror story, it is horror in the old-fashioned sense of someone defying moral laws or decency and being repaid with an appropriate (and ghastly) comeuppance.

The writing doesn't include the kind of whiz-bang pseudo-scientific detail that informs so much of modern science fiction, and at times the writing falls prey to that 19th-century tendency toward purple prose. For some readers, however, that may be a plus.

It's also important as a major contribution to Western literature from a woman's pen. The first edition of the book, I have read, was published anonymously (another example of that saying that "Anonymous was a woman"), but in later editions, Shelley listed herself as its author.

[pixelette · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The storyline of this was very surprising! From all the pop culture references to the story, I thought that it was going to be completely different. I also found it quite absorbing. A great read, especially lovely that you can pick it up for free and pop it on your e-reader and then enjoy the whole thing instantly. Magic!

[benuathanasia · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While the story was great, I don't think the epistolary format did it any favors.

[matthew.ducmanas · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Written with just as much melodrama as you'll see in every film adaptation, Shelly's novel is nonetheless still quite powerful. Frankenstein still allows parallels to be drawn with our times despite being originally published nearly 200 years ago. For all its symbolism it remains a very human story.

[katy89williams · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm sorry, but I don't understand how on earth this book could be considered boring. I had to read it in school and I finished it before the rest of my class and then I went and bought my own copy. She clearly shows the character's pain that he felt with playing God. It tore him apart the fact that he created this poor creature and he didn't consider how it would survive, if it needed companionship, and especially how society would accept him. Frankenstein's ambition for knowledge ruined his life when he created the monster, and he was made to suffer when he lost his cousin. For me, these elements cannot be considered boring or a let down.

[lreinardy08 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A good story really about the cruelty of man. The horror story about the big bad monster isn't really what I consider this book. The creation of Frankenstein is a horrid sight that he regretted instantly, but could have been a perfectly happy, respectable "human being" had he been given the chance. The pain and destruction that man causes is far more overwhelming than that of Frankenstein's creation, and it is easily seen in the book. A good read, gets slow at times, especially the end... but a pretty good read non-the-less.

[wisewoman_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I'm glad I finally picked this up. For the uninitiated like myself, here's a tip: the monster's name isn't Frankenstein. Shocking, I know. Victor Frankenstein is the scientist; the monster is never given a proper name.This is verrrrry nineteenth-century Romantic, dramatic and melancholy and doomed destiny, played out over beautiful scenery without and horrible scenery within. Murder is done; a small child is the first victim. The reader can sense from the first that there will be no happy ending here.The main points of the plot are well known: Frankenstein creates a monster and then refuses to fulfill the monster's needs, and the monster takes a terrible revenge. It's fascinating how the monster is presented throughout as the more reasonable of the two. When he and Frankenstein finally meet, he keeps his temper and speaks calmly when Frankenstein is overcome with passion. The monster seems extremely literate, beyond what his his paltry education could have taught him.If Frankenstein and his monster are a picture of God and His creatures, it's breathtakingly insolent. And this is precisely what Mary Shelley intended, as she apparently called her monster "Adam." But despite all the supposed culpability of Frankenstein for the monster's crimes, consider... when the monster succeeds in destroying his creator, he realizes he has destroyed all his own chances for happiness. Instead of freeing him, his evil deeds have sealed his separation from humanity, and he cannot live with the desolation he has made. He has killed his god, and disappears into the darkness to kill himself.What really struck me as I read is how Shelley is able to create compassion in the reader for her monster. During the monster's narration, I kept thinking of people who are outcasts from society as a result of some mental (or criminal) "deformity." The monster's desire to be part of the human family is not so very different from theirs. And yet he commits horrible acts that irrevocably alienate him from human beings. He is his own destruction. But is it his fault? Or Frankenstein's?I suppose a modern reader, in relentless pursuit of Relevance and Chilling Statements on the Dangers of Scientific Arrogance in the classics, could wrestle some warnings or licenses out of the text for whatever his particular stance happens to be on the ethical issues we face in the scientific world today. I was all ready to do this myself, but I didn't find anything particularly pointed in this direction. The scientific issues are nothing compared to the theological—because everything, even science, is theological in that it reflects a worldview in which God figures... or He doesn't. The author of Frankenstein is an atheist who, not content with denying God's existence, also wants to smear His (non-existent) character. How can you hate someone you don't believe exists? And yet it's not that simple either, because Frankenstein isn't wholly bad... just human.I read this in one sitting. It's fairly short, but even so it could have been shorter. Mary Shelley should have kept it a short story instead of expanding it to a novel on her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley's advice. While I'm glad to have read this, there isn't really much that would ever make me return. It's supposed to be horror, but the descriptions of the horrific parts didn't haunt me. Stylistically, it's all right; there are a few memorable phrases here and there, but even at a mere two hundred pages it feels somewhat overdrawn, overdone. As a story, once you've read it, well, you've read it.

[elizajane_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Reason for Reading: I intend to read the upcoming non-fiction title "The Lady and Her Monsters" which is about the writing and background of the creation of the novel "Frankenstein" so I thought it would be best if I re-read the book to better appreciate the former.I am a huge Frankenstein fan! I first watched the Boris Karloff movie as a young child and have since seen it dozens of times. I've seen all the MGM sequels and have a deluxe DVD edition with commentaries, etc. I've also seen many, many different remakes, pastiches and parodies of the movie as well as reading Frankenstein themed retellings, comics and pastiches. I have read this, the original book, once before when I was quite young. It was one of the first books I took out of the library when I obtained an adult library card with special permission of my father at 12 or 13. (You had to be 14, or in highschool, to get one at the time). Needless to say at this point in time 30 years later, the movie version, specifically the James Whale (Boris Karloff) version is the one that I think of when I think of the Frankenstein story.When I went into reading this book I knew that it was a totally different story than what my mind recalls from the movies but I also remembered that it started in the Arctic with the monster relating his story to Frankenstein. So from this I was totally blown away with how incredibly different the actual story is to the conceived modern notion of the tale. The book is told in narrative form from three different points of view and is a story within a story within a story. Starting off with a mariner writing home letters to his sister as he starts an Arctic expedition and then becomes stuck in ice he recounts his tale and his meeting of Victor Frankenstein who stumbles upon them near death in his mad chase of his creature. Then Walton, the mariner, recounts the tale that Frankenstein relates to him of his life. The awful, hideous story of his wretched life. Halfway through this recounting Frankenstein stops to relate the story the creature pauses to tell him of his life story since he woke from the "spark of life" and wandered into the world on his own. Then it goes back to Frankenstein's narrative and finally ends again with Walton's letters. This way we get both Frankenstein and the creature's tales from their own mouths, in their own words as they were related to the person they spoke to. Neither Frankenstein or the creature are sympathetic which I found surprising, as in the movie I am deeply sympathetic to Karloff's monster. But in the novel, he is a vile, wicked, murdering beast who at first thinks he has human compassion but quickly is turned from having any and easily finds violence and revenge better to his suiting when he is not treated fairly by others. Frankenstein himself is simply mad, the quintessential mad scientist. Obsessed with his creation he thinks of nothing else, working in solitude day and night until he completes his reanimation of life. Upon first glimpse of this "life" he is so horrified that he runs from it and from this point on he becomes obsessed with finding it and destroying it, however the monster has developed his own lust for destroying Frankenstein and sets out to destroy him also, not bodily but in mind and soul by killing all who mean anything to him.A frightening tale that shows the futility and madness at playing God with science, even though the book mentions very little about religion. This edition I read from "The Whole Story" edition is a wonderful annotated edition which really brings the classics to life. The annotations don't particularly help explain the story any better, though there are some pictures and definitions of some items and devices one may not be familiar with. The main purpose of these annotations is to set one geographically and historically within the place and era that the book was written. Profusely illustrated with etchings and paintings of place names mentioned in the story one becomes immersed in the scenery and in this book particularly the Gothic feel comes to life. Historically we see the prisons of the time period, meet the Romantic poets and artists who shaped the life of the author and the mood which carried over into this novel. I really enjoy and recommend this edition, have several others in the series and would pick up any others I found, but unfortunately they are out of print at this time.

[oldflame_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Too much romanticism. And I think the pressure to look at the creature sympathetically pissed me off more than it should.

[ra_scrittore · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Those of you who have preconceived notions about this story because you've seen the Hollywood film versions, read this book. You'll be pleasantly surprised. I guarantee it. This is nothing like the film and so much better. Shelley, in her brilliance, offers the hideous creature as the one to pity here. Not Frankenstein, not the townspeople, but the creature. A sad victim of his creator's selfish ambitions and the prejudices of a naive populace. In a way, a neglected and abused child, driven to acts of violence and rage as the only release from the agonizing rejection and isolation. His only real crime was his consuming need for acceptance...a friend...to love and be loved. This book was so ahead of its time when it was written. I highly recommend it. One of my favorites.

[msaucier818 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book was not what I expected at all. I have seen various television and movie productions of Frankenstein, and none of them are accurate to the story at all outside of the creation of a "monster" out of dead human parts. The course of the story was very unexpected, and there is not nearly as much sympathy for the monster as I would have expected going into the book. The intellectual side of me very much enjoyed this book as it brings up many good philosophical questions about the meaning of life. It also even has a hint of science fiction in the sense that it looks the question of how would a creature such as this develop into an intelligent being.

I am glad I read this and am surprised that it took me so long to get to it. Recommended for all.

[gagirl101 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I really did not like this book.I thought that it was just way too depressing and blown out of proportion and I hated the style of writing, with the story within a story within a story deal. I just didn't think it was all that great. I think that there were other ways that that could've been done. Mary Shelley must not have had a happy life to write a story like this.

[umamh12 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Knowing the real story of the writer, Mary Shelley, you can relate to the dilemma of whether to bring back a loved one back from the dead or not. The consequences of knowing it may not be someone you recognize.