Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
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Frankenstein

Author: Mary Shelley

Narrator: John Adams

Unabridged: 8 hr 20 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/13/2024


Synopsis

Mary Shelley’s classic novel, presented in its original 1818 text, Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.The original 1818 text of Frankenstein preserves the hard-hitting and politically-charged aspects of Shelley’s original writing, as well as her unflinching wit and strong female voice. The classic novel is famously subtitled The Modern Prometheus and based on the Ancient Greek myth of Prometheus, as both Victor Frankenstein and Prometheus developed science that gives humans immortality.
 Few creatures of horror have seized readers' imaginations and held them for so long as the anguished monster of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The story of Victor Frankenstein's terrible creation and the havoc it caused has enthralled generations of readers and inspired countless writers of horror and suspense. Considering the gothic novel's enduring success, it is remarkable that it began merely as a whim of Lord Byron'sThe illustrious poets failed to complete their ghost stories, but Mary Shelley rose supremely to the challenge With Frankenstein, she succeeded admirably in the task she set for herself: to create a story that, in her own words, "would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and awaken thrilling horror — one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart.The book has inspired numerous movie, theatrical, and television adaptations.A top 100 Great American Read, it's one of the best-loved and most influential works ever published.

About Mary Shelley

The daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, the ardent feminist and author of A Vindication on the Right of Women, and William Goodwin, the radical-anarchist philosopher and author of Lives of the Necromancers, Mary Goodwin was born into a free-thinking, revolutionary household in London on August 30, 1797. Educated mainly by her intellectual surroundings, she had little formal schooling, and at age sixteen, she eloped with the young poet Percy Bysshe Shelly; they eventually married in 1816.

Mary Shelly's life had many tragic elements: her mother died giving birth to Mary; her half-sister committed suicide; Percy's wife Harriet Shelly drowned herself and her unborn child after he ran off with Mary; William Goodwin disowned Mary and Shelly after the elopement but, heavily in debt, recanted and came to them for money; Mary's first child died soon after its birth; and in 1822 Percy Shelly drowned in the Gulf of La Spezia—Mary was not quite twenty-five then.

Mary did not begin to write seriously until the summer of 1816, when she and Shelly were living in Switzerland, neighbors to Lord Byron. One night following a contest to compose ghost stories, Mary conceived her masterpiece, Frankenstein. After her husband's death, she continued to write, publishing Valperga, The Last Man, Ladore, and Faulkner between 1823 and 1837, in addition to editing Percy's works. In 1838 she began to work on his biography, but due to poor health she completed only a fragment.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Sean Barrs on August 26, 2022

3rd Review - August 2022 I read Frankenstein for a sixth time this week. Although it is one of my favourite novels, and in my opinion one of the finest pieces of fiction ever written, I find myself with a new appreciation of the text every time I come to it. A large proportion of one of my PhD cha......more

Goodreads review by Federico on March 26, 2023

Some monsters are not born, they are created by the cruelty around them. Victor Frankenstein is a scientist and alchemist obsessed with creating life. Neglecting his betrothed, friends and even himself, he devotes all energy and efforts to the construction of his Creation, an unspeakable thing for......more

Goodreads review by Emily May on January 26, 2019

“I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.” -From the 1994 movie The worst thing about this novel is how distorted it has become by constant movie adaptations and misinformed i......more

Goodreads review by emma on July 25, 2024

Don’t get why everyone spends so much time talking about “the theme of science versus nature” and how this is “the world’s first science fiction novel” when clearly this is the world’s pre-eminent text on the subject of the dire consequences of procrastination. But whatever. This book rules. First off,......more