Details

Subject(s)

• Monsters—Fiction [Browse]
• Frankenstein, Victor (Fictitious character)—Fiction [Browse]

Related name

• Butler, Marilyn, 1937- [Browse]

Library of Congress genre(s)

• Fiction [Browse]

Series

• World's classics [More in this series]
• The world's classics

Summary note

• Frankenstein was Mary Shelley's immensely powerful contribution to the ghost stories which she, Percy Shelley, and Byron devised one wet summer in Switzerland. Its protagonist is a young student of natural philosophy, who learns the secret of imparting life to a creature constructed from relics of the dead, with horrific consequences. Frankenstein confronts some of the most feared innovations of evolutionism: topics such as degeneracy, hereditary disease, and mankind's status as a species of animal. The text used here is from the 1818 edition, which is a mocking expose' of leaders and achievers who leave desolation in their wake, showing humanity its choice - to live co-operatively or to die of selfishness.
• Drawing on new research, Marilyn Butler examines the novel in the context of the radical sciences, which were developing among much controversy, and shows how Frankenstein's experiment relates to a contemporary debate between the champions of materialist science and of received religion.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references.

Other title(s)

Modern Prometheus

ISBN

• 0192822837 ((pbk.))
• 9780192822833 ((pbk.))

LCCN

93034655

OCLC

31170680

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