Frankenstein: Penguin Classics

Written by Mary W. Shelley

Narrated by Peter Noble and Colin Salmon

Brought to you by Penguin.

This Penguin Classic is performed by Colin Salmon known for his starring roles in Resident Evil and Alien Vs Predator. He is also known for his role as Charles Robinson alongside Pierce Brosnan's James Bond. This definitive recording includes an Introduction by Maurice Hindle, read by Peter Noble.

A terrifying vision of scientific progress without moral limits, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein leads the reader on an unsettling journey from the sublime beauty of the Swiss alps to the desolate waste of the arctic circle.

Obsessed with the idea of creating life itself, Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material with which to fashion a new being, shocking his creation to life with electricity. But this botched creature, rejected by its creator and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy Frankenstein and all that he holds dear. Mary Shelley's chilling gothic tale was conceived when she was only eighteen, living with her lover Percy Shelley near Lord Byron's villa on Lake Geneva. It would become the world's most famous work of Gothic horror, and Frankenstein's monster an instantly-recognisable symbol of the limits of human creativity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Release date: Sep 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9780241422625

Mary W. Shelley

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born on August 30, 1797, into a life of personal tragedy. In 1816, she married the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and that summer traveled with him and a host of other Romantic intellectuals to Geneva. Her greatest achievement was piecing together one of the most terrifying and renowned stories of all time: Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. Shelley said she conceived of Frankenstein in “a waking dream.” This vision was simply of a student kneeling before a corpse brought to life. Yet this tale of a mad creator and his abomination has inspired a multitude of storytellers and artists. She died on February 1, 1851.