Frankenstein (Enriched Classics)

Book Description

ENDURING LITERATURE ILLUMINATED

BY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIP

A timeless, terrifying tale of one man's obsession to create life -- and the monster that became his legacy.

EACH ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES:

• A concise introduction that gives readers important background information

• A chronology of the author's life and work

• A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context

• An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations

• Detailed explanatory notes

• Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work

• Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction

• A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience

Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full potential.

SERIES EDITED BY CYNTHIA BRANTLEY JOHNSON

Customer Reviews:

frankenstein.......2007-07-29

came next day in perfect condition my sister needed it for school and she was very pleased thank you

Prometheus.......2007-03-10

On my recent travels, I finished reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Written in the Gothic style, it's also written as one would tell a ghost story: minimalist in its descriptions of setting, focusing on character and action more than anything else. It's written in the first person, with varying narrators allowing for varied points of view. Despite the threadbare descriptions of setting, Shelley does a good job of conveying with those few words key aspects of the setting, giving her story great atmosphere.

Gothic stories always are high on emotion, and not high on reasoning thought, and this is no exception. I am still left wondering how folks can consider this a work of science fiction. It is more fantasy than science fiction: man takes on the role of God, man's creation, like God's, goes awry, and the pair are locked in a monumental struggle. Fantasy's themes often go to the nature of characters trying to choose between right and wrong, while science fiction's themes go towards the consequences of technology and science, without the necessity of morality, and Frankenstein tends towards fantasy under that line of thinking...hence, the alternate title, "The Modern Prometheus".

All in all, an entertaining, and quick read.

One of the greatest stories told.......2007-02-28

In Mary Shelley's novel, there are various statements about the use of science. The field of eugenics is brought into question. The issue of cloning is brought into perspective way before its time. Shelley's novel is prophetic in so many ways for revealing the debates and scientific issues of contemporary times. From the recent FDA consideration of livestock cloning to genetically engineered crops, these controversial issues have been compared to Frankenstein science. Other past scientific innovations such as the use of pesticides like DDT have led to failure and proved dangerous for human civilization. These too were once compared to Frankenstein science, yet humankind persisted on using these chemicals, all for reasons of convenience and capital ambition on the part of corporations involved. We may see Shelley's Frankenstein as the first great scientific warning to humans in an industrial world. It may also be seen as the beginning of environmental awareness. This awareness concerns humans within their own environments such as parent/child relationships and childhood influences, as well as human impact on nature.

DO NOT BUY THIS EDITION!!!!!!.......2007-01-31

This "enriched classics" is a bowdlerized version of Mary Shelley's original text. It eliminates passages, changes the diction, abridges the chapters, and changes the entire structure of the novel. Our school bought this edition thinking that the additional notes would be helpful to students studying the text, but there was no indication at all on Amazon's website that this version had been substantially altered by the editors. The book is so bowdlerized that our school bought an entire new set of texts for the students at a considerable finanacial loss for the school. WHATEVER YOU DO, BUY SOME OTHER VERSION OF FRANKENSTEIN. THIS ONE IS A MONSTER CREATED BY SOMEONE WHO HAS NO RESPECT FOR THE AUTHOR. BANTAM, PUFFIN, OXFORD -- THEY ARE ALL FINE. Irene Nicastro, English teacher, The American School of The Hague.

Shelley's Magnum Opus.......2007-01-19

When people think of horror, the image of Boris Karloff's Frankenstein can generally be expected to pop into their heads, usually within the first minute of the word "horror"s utterance.
Yet Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is not horror. It is science-fiction - and, for that matter, one of the first works of science-fiction ever written, as well as one of the most brilliant. While many of the nineteenth-century authors who boldly dove into the realm of the unknown came back with fascinating baubels that are now horribly dated, "Frankenstein" maintains its power and prescience in three ways:
1) Its foremost theme is that of life itself - what is it that separates inanimate tissue from its living counterpart, and what in turn can give sentience to what might otherwise be a mindless organism. The answers to these questions have not yet been discovered, and are indeed probably in greater controversy today than they were in Shelley's own time.
2) Another aspect timeless aspect of this book is its exploration into the responsibilities of creation - not merely scientific creation, but of any sort of creation, of any situation in which a human being with an idea sees it through to the finish, only to find that unexpected consequences await him/her.
3) The drama itself - of a man fleeing from a monster, and of a monster trying desperately to assert his manhood - is as poignant as it is profound, and the reader who isn't moved by the plights of both these characters lacks either the heart to care or the brain to understand.
It is a shame that people today associate the word Frankenstein with cheap and formulaic horror films. Indeed, there is a fair amount of irony that Frankenstein is often thought of as a run-of-the-mill hideous monster, when indeed it was precisely that sort of knee-jerk superficiality and intolerance that Shelley herself was trying to combat. Either way, Frankenstein is one of those rare books that managed to create its own genre without later being dated by countless similar efforts. No matter how great future science fictions writers may become, they will always walk in the shadow of Frankenstein.

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You've seen Karloff, now read the original
Free SF Reader
Frankenstein: The Good and the Bad
Still the best
Gothic at its best

Frankenstein (Bantam Classics)
Mary Shelley
Manufacturer: Bantam Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0553212478
Release Date: 1984-05-01

Amazon.com

Frankenstein, loved by many decades of readers and praised by such eminent literary critics as Harold Bloom, seems hardly to need a recommendation. If you haven't read it recently, though, you may not remember the sweeping force of the prose, the grotesque, surreal imagery, and the multilayered doppelgänger themes of Mary Shelley's masterpiece. As fantasy writer Jane Yolen writes of this (the reviewer's favorite) edition, "The strong black and whites of the main text [illustrations] are dark and brooding, with unremitting shadows and stark contrasts. But the central conversation with the monster--who owes nothing to the overused movie image … but is rather the novel's charnel-house composite--is where [Barry] Moser's illustrations show their greatest power ... The viewer can all but smell the powerful stench of the monster's breath as its words spill out across the page. Strong book-making for one of the world's strongest and most remarkable books." Includes an illuminating afterword by Joyce Carol Oates.

Book Description

"I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion." A summer evening's ghost stories, lonely insomnia in a moonlit Alpine's room, and a runaway imagination--fired by philosophical discussions with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley about science, galvanism, and the origins of life--conspired to produce for Marry Shelley this haunting night specter. By morning, it had become the germ of her Romantic masterpiece, Frankenstein.

Written in 1816 when she was only nineteen, Mary Shelley's novel of "The Modern Prometheus" chillingly dramatized the dangerous potential of life begotten upon a laboratory table. A frightening creation myth for our own time, Frankenstein remains one of the greatest horror stories ever written and is an undisputed classic of its kind.

Customer Reviews:

You've seen Karloff, now read the original.......2007-10-08

Once you read Shelley's classic you're going to scratch your head and wonder: Is this really the book that gave us the Karloff movie? Not to mention Herman Munster and Frankenberry. For over a century and half people have been cannibalizing this book for ideas, movies, other books, and products of every size, shape and type that our modern concept of Frankenstein holds little to no resemblence to the master work. While occasionally these bastardizations have had enjoyable results, like Young Frankenstein, it's criminal that so few people are unfamiliar with the source. Do yourself a favor and find out where it all came from. It's not nearly as creepy as you may think, but it's infinitely more thought provoking and it certainly doesn't hurt that this version is beautifully published at a very reasonable price.

Free SF Reader.......2007-09-03

It is pretty surprising that something come up with almost on a whim to
provide a diversion has come to be such an important text for two
genres, both horror and science fiction.

Victor Frankenstein's obsession with the creation of life ultimately ends in tragedy and death for those around him.

Frankenstein: The Good and the Bad.......2007-04-29

One reason why I don't like this book is because I don;t like scarcy books, but this is a very interesting book. I also think that it is totally cool that a woman wrote it because that proves that women can like spooky stories even if most don't.

Still the best.......2007-04-15

Somehow, 175 years after it was first written, this story keeps holding our attention. Not just that, it says more to our modern world than it ever said before.

Popularized versions of this story lack all the depth of Shelley's original. Yes, her monster was physically huge, powerful, and respulsive. In her version, though, he's a thinking, feeling, and deeply intelligent person. He is deeply hurt by the universal, unreasoning loathing that judges only his face - even from the man who created him. The creation has a majestic capacity for affection but, in a credible transformation of emotional alchemy, that whole capacity turns to rage. He is not an image of hate, but a mirror of it.

The hubristic biotechnologist has an immediacy today that Shelley could scarcely have imagined. So, I think, does the vengeful lashing out by people who feel they have suffered grievous wrongs, leading to a deadly spiral of increasing hatred by all parties. I just hope that current readers will take the time needed to absorb this book properly - it was never paced for today's ADD-driven generation.

//wiredweird

Gothic at its best.......2006-12-16

Mary Shelley was the daughter of the famous feminist and author, Mary Wollstonecraft, who is best known for her work The Vindication of the Rights of Women. In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a young university student, Victor Frankenstein, obsesses with wanting to know the secret to life. He studies chemistry and natural philosophy with the goal of being able to create a human out of spare body parts. After months of constant work in his laboratory, Frankenstein attains his goal and brings his creation to life. Frankenstein is immediately overwrought by fear and remorse at the sight of his creation, a "monster." The next morning, he decides to destroy his creation but finds that the monster has escaped. The monster, unlike other humans, has no social preparation or education; thus, it is unequipped to take care of itself either physically or emotionally. The monster lives in the forest like an animal without knowledge of "self" or understanding of its surroundings. The monster happens upon a hut inhabited by a poor family and is able to find shelter in a shed adjacent to the hut. For several months, the monster starts to gain knowledge of human life by observing the daily life of the hut's inhabitants through a crack in the wall. The monster's education of language and letters begins when he listens to one of them learning the French language. During this period, the monster also learns of human society and comes to the realization that he is grotesque and alone in the world. Armed with his newfound ability to read, he reads three books that he found in a leather satchel in the woods. Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther, Milton's Paradise Lost, and a volume of Plutarch's Lives. The monster, not knowing any better, read these books thinking them to be facts about human history. From Plutarch's works, he learns of humankind's virtues. However, it is Paradise Lost that has a most interesting effect on the monster's understanding of self. The monster at first identifies with Adam, "I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence." The monster, armed only with his limited education, thought that he would introduce himself to the cottagers and depend on their virtue and benevolence; traits he believed from his readings that all humans possessed. However, soon after his first encounter with the cottagers, he is beaten and chased off because his ugliness frightens people. The monster is overwrought by a feeling of perplexity by this reaction, since he thought he would gain their trust and love, which he observed them generously give to each other on so many occasions. He receives further confirmation of how his ugliness repels people when, sometime later, he saves a young girl from drowning and the girl's father shoots at him because he is frightful to look at. The monster quickly realizes that the books really lied to him. He found no benevolence or virtue among humans, even from his creator. At every turn in his life, humans are judging him solely based on his looks. The monster soon realizes that it is not Adam, the perfect being enjoying the world, which he is most alike. Instead, he comes to realize that he most represents Satan. The monster is jealous of the happiness he sees humans enjoy that he has never attained for himself. The monster tells Frankenstein that he found his lab journal in his coat pocket and read it with increasing hate and despair as he came to understand what Frankenstein's intent was in creating him. The monster curses Frankenstein for making a creature so hideous that even his creator turned from him in disgust.

Shelley's intent here is plain to see. "The fate of the monster suggests that proficiency in `the art of language' as he calls it, may not ensure one's position as a member of the `human kingdom." In a sense, she is showing that both her parents were mistaken when they advocated greater education reform for people. They thought education would make people better, which in turn would improve society for all. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein contradicts this belief.

Starting with the full title of Mary Shelley's book, Frankenstein: or The Modern Prometheus one can instantly see that mythology was integral to her book. Lord Byron, poet and friend of the Shelley's was writing a poem entitled Prometheus, and Mary was reading the Prometheus legend in Aeschylus' works when she had a dream, which was the impetus for her book. The Greek god Prometheus, is known for two important tasks that he performed, he created man from clay, and he stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. The stealing of fire really angered Zeus because the giving of fire began an era of enlightenment for humankind. Zeus punished Prometheus by having him carried to a mountain, where an eagle would pick at his liver; it would grow back each day and the eagle would eat it again
.
The presence of fire and light in this gothic story helps to point to the similarities to Prometheus and Victor Frankenstein, the creator of the monster, in Shelley's book. The book uses light as a symbol of discovery, knowledge, and enlightenment. The natural world is full of hidden passages, and dark unknown scientific secrets; Victor's goal as a scientist is to grasp towards the light. Light is a by-product of fire that the monster learned quickly when he is living on his own. The monster experienced fires' duality when he first encountered it in an unattended fire in the woods. He is mesmerized by the fact that fire produces light in the darkness in the woods, but is shocked at the sensation of pain it gives him when he touches it. Victor is defiant of god in the same way that Prometheus was defiant of Zeus. Victor steals the secret of life from god and creates a human out of spare body parts. He does this out of an altruistic wish to spare humankind from the pain and suffering of death. Thus, Victor Frankenstein embodies both aspects of the Promethean myth creation and fire. Victor in a sense has the same experience with the fire of enlightenment similar to his monster; he is "burned" by the fire of enlightenment. Victor also suffers from the classic Greek tragic condition of hubris for his transgression against god and nature.

The book also adopts two other great mythic legends. One is Adam from the Bible. Victor Frankenstein bears striking resemblance to Adam and his fall from grace for eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. The other is Satan, a mythic figure that Shelley admired from her readings in Milton's book Paradise Lost. In an interesting juxtaposition of booth myths, she expands on the motif of the fall from grace in her book when she portrays the monster comparing himself to Adam; after he read, Milton's book Paradise Lost. The monster tells Victor, that he at first identifies with Adam God's first creation. "I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence." However, after several incidents of mistreatment that he suffered from the humans he encountered in his travels; the monster soon realized that it is not Adam, the perfect being enjoying the world, which he was most alike. Instead, he came to realize that he most represented Satan. The monster's feelings of hatred and despair stem from the fact that humans found him grotesque to look at and would not accept him as a member of human society. The monster cursed Victor for making a creature so hideous that even his creator turned from him in disgust. Thus, it is obvious for all to see that Shelley's Frankenstein is replete with mythological references and they are central to the plot.

This was required reading for a graduate course in the Humanities. Recommended reading for anyone interested in history, psychology, philosophy, and literature.

Average customer rating:

Frankenstein is timeless.
Greatest Story Ever Told
Dr. Victor Frankenstein sets out to play GOD; and having played with such presumptive fire, gets burned.
Wrong text (1831 rather than 1818)
One of the greatest stories ever told

Frankenstein (Penguin Classics)
Mary Shelley
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0141439475
Release Date: 2003-05-06

Book Description

Edited by Maurice Hindle.

Customer Reviews:

Frankenstein is timeless........2007-08-15

For those who only think of movie images when they recall Frankenstein, this book will serve as a pleasant and refreshing experience. The gothic undertones lend authenticity to this beautiful story. When I first began to read this book, I was expecting horror and terrifying elements that may have inspired authors like Stephen King. However, I was amazed at just how beautifully deep and inspiring the book actually was.

There is no need for me to rehash the plot because others who have reviewed have done this, but they failed to mention just how many levels there are to this book. The whole story is based on relationships; those between creator and creature, man and nature, science and morality, familial relationships, etc. It is full of concepts such as existentialism, religion, philosophy, family, society (and the shallow, narrow-mindedness of society), and so on. For such a short work, it really covers a large range of human experience.

This is probably my favorite book. It left me feeling hopeful and inspired and I recommend it to just about anyone.

Greatest Story Ever Told.......2007-06-19

Sorry to you religious types, but this novel describes the human condition more powerfully than any "spiritual" tome. To say that it is about responsibility, scientific as well as parental, would be true but also misleading as to the true depth of the work. Like some greek tragedy, there are no truly evil characters in this story. Both Victor Frankenstein and his creation are the victims of their own personalities. Destiny or psychology? Ponder the creature's emotionally wrought story well, for it describes perfectly the psychology of a terrorist who is a human being with family, not some inhuman monster, who strikes out at those he perceives as uncaring to his real or imagined wrongs suffered at the hands of others. Many forget that this was a horror story. Though the creature started out innocent, in the last third of the novel it has matured into a destructive force. And what a force! It haunts Frankenstein like some demonic monkey on his back, stalking him and killing his loved ones while Frankenstein is unable to expose him to the world without admitting his complicity in the creature's existence, even if he were to be believed. At one point, he ends up in an insane asylum. The novel starts with Frankenstein's obsession to create life, and ends with his obsession to destroy what he has created. A timeless portrait of the human condition in all its wretchedness.

Dr. Victor Frankenstein sets out to play GOD; and having played with such presumptive fire, gets burned........2007-05-04

Let us compare two perspectives from which to 'see' this work by Mary Shelley---through the eyes of Victor Frankenstein's or through the eyes of that doctor's creation. Let's begin with the latter; and in the words (yes, 'he' speaks in the book) of that creature/daemon/monster/being: "I must not be trifled with, and I demand an answer. If I have no ties and no affections, hatred and vice must be my portion; the love of another will destroy the cause of my crimes, and I shall become a thing of whose existance every one will be ignorant. My vices are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor, and my virtues will necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal. I shall feel the affections of a sensitive being and become linked to the chain of existence and events from which I am now excluded."

But, alas, it was not to be for Dr. Frankenstein's bodily creation, as 'he' admits to "...daily vows [which] rose for revenge---a deep and deadly revenge, such as would alone compensate for the outrages and anguish I had endured.""Inflamed by pain, I vowed eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind."

"Once my fancy was soothed with dreams of virtue, of fame, and of enjoyment. 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 desired love and friendship, and I was still spurned. Was there no injustice in this?" "But it is true that I am a wretch. I have murdered the lovely and the helpless; I have strangled the innocent as they slept and grasped to death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing." "Am I to be thought the only criminal , when all humankind sinned against me?" And, akin to that berzerk kid in Virginia who went on a killing spree (in April of 2007) Shelley puts in the mouth of Frankenstein's creation the same words that that kid utilized after the fact: "You made this happen."

(Dr. Frankenstein's creation speaks well, does he not? Get a load of this sentence from the Doctor's creation, as the creation, in his own words, describes his seeing a young girl carrying a pail thusly: "As she walked along, seemingly incommoded by the burden, a young man met her, whose counternance expressed a deeper despondence.")

Then we have the sympathetic Dr. Victor Frankenstein:"I had often, when at home, thought it hard to remain during my youth cooped up in one place and had longed to enter the world and take my station among other human beings." Actually, to be frank (pardon the pun), we not only have Victor and his creation's viewpoints, but Victor's viewpoint of the 1818 edition of this book and the 1831 revised (by Mary Shelley herself) edition. Likewise the Doctor's creation changes in some respects between editions. So we have 4 varying perspectives through which to view this novel, you could argue. While there were many stylistic changes made (I consulted the 1818 text---Frankenstein (Oxford World's Classics)---to see for myself what the differences were, just for curiosity), more substantive changes were also made, as well (substantial enough to give us another two takes on our pair of major characters). So, what were the changes? Well, for the 1831 version, Dr. Frankenstein's character was made more sympathetic, "who is partly absolved from blame for his early errors" (Appendix Oxford 1818 version). In addition, Dr. "Frankenstein's character is now built up as admirable" (Oxford again). And Dr. Frankenstein is given lines about 'the guardian angel of my life,' as well as referring to his soul. And, finally, Victor's love interest is made a non-relation in the 1831 version while the women in question in the 1818 version is his consistently identified and referred to as his (first) cousin. So, one could argue that Dr. Frankenstein was tempting fate in the 1818 version---the love interest with a first cousin and his being a scientist without an overly religious consciousness trying to replicate life; ie., attempting to play God---while in the 1831 version we get a far more sympathetic characterization of the Doctor: "I had begun life with benevolent intentions and thristed for the moment when I should put them in practice and make myself useful to my fellow beings." Who can really say why Mary Shelley made these changes, but It seems hard not to credit some of the tragedies which befell her in the interim. The 1818 novel was written by a daughter whose parents "had been heavily influenced by the ideals of the French Revolution," and her father, to boot, was a radical of the anarchist Left; "an ex-Dissenting minister turned atheist..." While the 1831 version, one could conjecture, was influenced by these tragedies: the suicide of her husband's first wife (after Mary had stolen away with the then already married man), the death of 2 (of her 3) children, and the drowning of her husband. (The latter---the Oxford edition introduction notes---put her in a more precarious financial situation (not completely relieved until her father's passing in 1844.)

So, where does that leave us? Which version should one read? Well, that's your call. Both versions convey, in Mary Shelley's own words, how "Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world." But at the same time, both versions pretty much make Dr. Frankenstein's artificial creation sympathetic too. The two versions just reorder the stress between these two notions; the 1818 version (See Frankenstein (Norton Critical Editions)) leaning more heavily on the former (but nowhere nearly so as does the James Whale classic Frankenstein film---Boris Karloff's Frankenstein - The Legacy Collection (Frankenstein / Bride of / Son of / Ghost of / House of); wherein the creature is not portrayed as sympathetic and Victor is portrayed as a 'Mad' scientist), and the 1831 version being more of a fudge. (07May) Cheers

Wrong text (1831 rather than 1818).......2007-05-03

This particular edition uses the wrong text -- the bowdlerized 1831 text,rather than the original 1818 text. Most Frankenstein editions do in fact use the 1831 text, which was the only one available for 143 years. Then in 1974 James Rieger, in his _Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus: The 1818 Text_ (Chicago), compellingly made the case that the 1818 text is superior, in terms of both ideas and language. Almost all scholars of English Romanticism were convinced by Rieger, and now prefer the 1818 text.

Frankenstein really is a great work, containing profound symbolism, disturbing ideas, unforgettable images, and some of the most beautiful prose in the English language. However, to appreciate these fully, it's necessary to have the best text. Fortunately, several editions of the 1818 Frankenstein are now available, edited by J. Paul Hunter (Norton), James Rieger (Chicago), Susan J. Wolfson (Longman), and D.L. Macdonald & Kathleen Scherf (Broadview).

The masterpiece, Frankenstein, was really written by Percy Bysshe Shelley, one of the greatest poets in the English language. For this case, check out my own book, The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein.

I would give Frankenstein five stars, but this edition merits only one.

One of the greatest stories ever told.......2007-02-28

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Frankenstein (Penguin Readers, Level 3)
Mary Shelley
Manufacturer: Pearson ESL
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0582426987

The Frankenstein Notebooks: A Facsimile Edition of Mary Shelley's Manuscript Novel, 1816-17 (Manuscripts of the Younger Romantics)

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The Frankenstein Notebooks: A Facsimile Edition of Mary Shelley's Manuscript Novel, 1816-17 (Manuscripts of the Younger Romantics)
Mary Wo Shelley
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0815316089

Average customer rating:

Once Underestimated, Now Overestimated?
The hobo Philosopher
One of two best editions -- the 1818 text
Gothic at its best
Excellent Extras

Frankenstein (Norton Critical Editions)
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0393964582

Customer Reviews:

Once Underestimated, Now Overestimated?.......2007-09-25

It is a classic and, therefore, deserves a close reading. Norton editions are great. The text size is good, the print tends to be first-rate, and the critical essays usually include classic essays and major critics. This doesn't strike me as being worthy of the "A" list of literature, but that is a prejudice. I can't really accept any genre lit on the list, including detective, gothic, or science fiction. It is an interesting sample of this period, but I didn't get a lot out the the book itself. For one thing, the atmosphere of doom and gloom doesn't work for me. Everyone is sick and morbidly depressed and sad. This is not explained and I don't think one can easily guess. The writing works, sure, but I don't find the prose style uplifting or thrilling, as writing. The story is very familiar. As a child of the 60s, I remember well watching reruns of the classic film on TV. It is hard to divorce the brilliant film from the wordy novel. The film has some brilliant set-pieces. The novel has a lot in it and it certainly can and should be read at multiple levels, but in the end it is Victorian intellectual thought of the low order. There are other, better thinkers and novelists of far greater talent.

The hobo Philosopher.......2007-09-19

This is a classic and that is the reason that I read it. I liked the movie but the book is a whole other experience. I liked the format; I like the style; I liked the prose; I liked the intellectuality. I really didn't analyze it. I just read it for the fun of it. It was good. It was fun.

One of two best editions -- the 1818 text.......2007-05-02

Frankenstein is a great work, though one that has consistently been underrated
and misrepresented. Frankenstein is, in the words of Donald H. Reiman, "the
most seminal literary work of the Romantic period". It is a work of profound
and radical ideas, written in poetically powerful prose. Frankenstein is not
really a gothic novel, although its author sometimes employs gothic
conventions and language, and even spoofs them. Rather, Frankenstein is an
enduring myth, a novel of ideas, and above all, a moral allegory about the
evil effects of intolerance and prejudice, ostracism and alienation, both to
the victims of intolerance and to society at large.
Since there are some good reviews here, I'll concentrate on this
particular edition -- the Norton Critical Edition, edited by J. Paul Hunter.
This is one of the two best editions of Frankenstein available (the other
being the Chicago edition edited by James Rieger). Most importantly, this is
the original 1818 edition, rather than the inferior, bowdlerized 1831
edition -- which is the most common, and the only one that was available for
well over a century. Hunter's introduction is not bad. Some of the reviews
and essays in the back are good, and some are not, but this is par for the
course. The main text is intelligently annotated.
Please check out my own book, The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein, which
makes the case that Frankenstein was really written by Percy Bysshe Shelley,
one of the greatest poets in the English language. I also argue that male
love, both idealized and demonized, is a central theme of Frankenstein.

Gothic at its best.......2006-12-16

Mary Shelley was the daughter of the famous feminist and author, Mary Wollstonecraft, who is best known for her work The Vindication of the Rights of Women. In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a young university student, Victor Frankenstein, obsesses with wanting to know the secret to life. He studies chemistry and natural philosophy with the goal of being able to create a human out of spare body parts. After months of constant work in his laboratory, Frankenstein attains his goal and brings his creation to life. Frankenstein is immediately overwrought by fear and remorse at the sight of his creation, a "monster." The next morning, he decides to destroy his creation but finds that the monster has escaped. The monster, unlike other humans, has no social preparation or education; thus, it is unequipped to take care of itself either physically or emotionally. The monster lives in the forest like an animal without knowledge of "self" or understanding of its surroundings. The monster happens upon a hut inhabited by a poor family and is able to find shelter in a shed adjacent to the hut. For several months, the monster starts to gain knowledge of human life by observing the daily life of the hut's inhabitants through a crack in the wall. The monster's education of language and letters begins when he listens to one of them learning the French language. During this period, the monster also learns of human society and comes to the realization that he is grotesque and alone in the world. Armed with his newfound ability to read, he reads three books that he found in a leather satchel in the woods. Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther, Milton's Paradise Lost, and a volume of Plutarch's Lives. The monster, not knowing any better, read these books thinking them to be facts about human history. From Plutarch's works, he learns of humankind's virtues. However, it is Paradise Lost that has a most interesting effect on the monster's understanding of self. The monster at first identifies with Adam, "I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence." The monster, armed only with his limited education, thought that he would introduce himself to the cottagers and depend on their virtue and benevolence; traits he believed from his readings that all humans possessed. However, soon after his first encounter with the cottagers, he is beaten and chased off because his ugliness frightens people. The monster is overwrought by a feeling of perplexity by this reaction, since he thought he would gain their trust and love, which he observed them generously give to each other on so many occasions. He receives further confirmation of how his ugliness repels people when, sometime later, he saves a young girl from drowning and the girl's father shoots at him because he is frightful to look at. The monster quickly realizes that the books really lied to him. He found no benevolence or virtue among humans, even from his creator. At every turn in his life, humans are judging him solely based on his looks. The monster soon realizes that it is not Adam, the perfect being enjoying the world, which he is most alike. Instead, he comes to realize that he most represents Satan. The monster is jealous of the happiness he sees humans enjoy that he has never attained for himself. The monster tells Frankenstein that he found his lab journal in his coat pocket and read it with increasing hate and despair as he came to understand what Frankenstein's intent was in creating him. The monster curses Frankenstein for making a creature so hideous that even his creator turned from him in disgust.

Shelley's intent here is plain to see. "The fate of the monster suggests that proficiency in `the art of language' as he calls it, may not ensure one's position as a member of the `human kingdom." In a sense, she is showing that both her parents were mistaken when they advocated greater education reform for people. They thought education would make people better, which in turn would improve society for all. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein contradicts this belief.

Starting with the full title of Mary Shelley's book, Frankenstein: or The Modern Prometheus one can instantly see that mythology was integral to her book. Lord Byron, poet and friend of the Shelley's was writing a poem entitled Prometheus, and Mary was reading the Prometheus legend in Aeschylus' works when she had a dream, which was the impetus for her book. The Greek god Prometheus, is known for two important tasks that he performed, he created man from clay, and he stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. The stealing of fire really angered Zeus because the giving of fire began an era of enlightenment for humankind. Zeus punished Prometheus by having him carried to a mountain, where an eagle would pick at his liver; it would grow back each day and the eagle would eat it again.

The presence of fire and light in this gothic story helps to point to the similarities to Prometheus and Victor Frankenstein, the creator of the monster, in Shelley's book. The book uses light as a symbol of discovery, knowledge, and enlightenment. The natural world is full of hidden passages, and dark unknown scientific secrets; Victor's goal as a scientist is to grasp towards the light. Light is a by-product of fire that the monster learned quickly when he is living on his own. The monster experienced fires' duality when he first encountered it in an unattended fire in the woods. He is mesmerized by the fact that fire produces light in the darkness in the woods, but is shocked at the sensation of pain it gives him when he touches it. Victor is defiant of god in the same way that Prometheus was defiant of Zeus. Victor steals the secret of life from god and creates a human out of spare body parts. He does this out of an altruistic wish to spare humankind from the pain and suffering of death. Thus, Victor Frankenstein embodies both aspects of the Promethean myth creation and fire. Victor in a sense has the same experience with the fire of enlightenment similar to his monster; he is "burned" by the fire of enlightenment. Victor also suffers from the classic Greek tragic condition of hubris for his transgression against god and nature.

The book also adopts two other great mythic legends. One is Adam from the Bible. Victor Frankenstein bears striking resemblance to Adam and his fall from grace for eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. The other is Satan, a mythic figure that Shelley admired from her readings in Milton's book Paradise Lost. In an interesting juxtaposition of booth myths, she expands on the motif of the fall from grace in her book when she portrays the monster comparing himself to Adam; after he read, Milton's book Paradise Lost. The monster tells Victor, that he at first identifies with Adam God's first creation. "I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence." However, after several incidents of mistreatment that he suffered from the humans he encountered in his travels; the monster soon realized that it is not Adam, the perfect being enjoying the world, which he was most alike. Instead, he came to realize that he most represented Satan. The monster's feelings of hatred and despair stem from the fact that humans found him grotesque to look at and would not accept him as a member of human society. The monster cursed Victor for making a creature so hideous that even his creator turned from him in disgust. Thus, it is obvious for all to see that Shelley's Frankenstein is replete with mythological references and they are central to the plot.

This was required reading for a graduate course in the Humanities. Recommended reading for anyone interested in history, psychology, philosophy, and literature.

Excellent Extras.......2006-03-03

The chronological table in the back of the book helped me situate Mary Shelley within the time of the writing of Frankenstein. Percy B. Shelley's critique of the book, published after he died, was interesting. I liked the Criticisms in the back of the book. Most of all, I loved the Being Frankenstein created. This is the saddest, most thought provoking, book I've read in recent times (even though it's old).

Puffin Graphics: Frankenstein (Puffin Graphics (Graphic Novels))

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Puffin Graphics: Frankenstein (Puffin Graphics (Graphic Novels))
Mary Shelley , and Gary Reed
Manufacturer: Puffin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0142404071

Book Description

Victor Frankenstein, a Swiss scientist, has a great ambition: to create intelligent life. But when his creature first stirs, he realizes he has constructed a monster. Abandoned by its maker and shunned by everyone who sees it, the monster turns on its creator and haunts Dr. Frankenstein with murder and horrors to the very ends of the earth. Artist Frazer Irving's cinematic and moving portrayal of the doctor and his creation is sympathetic and powerful.

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Wow.......2005-07-15

I am not really into comics, but after picking this one up, I was impressed. Great graphics, especially after I found out it was done by Photoshop, and an easy to understand story. I think it was very well done and I look forward to seeing and reading more graphic novels in the future.

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An Original Argument
Lauritsen hits one out of the park
Boldly original scholarship
A Must read for any one posing as a n English scholar or who loves horror literary fiction
A Persuasive Argument

The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein
John Lauritsen
Manufacturer: Pagan Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0943742145
Release Date: 2007-05-01

Product Description

John Lauritsen debunks the myth that Frankenstein was written by a teenaged girl, Mary Godwin (later Mary Shelley), who took part in a ghost-story contest in Geneva, had a nightmare, and was inspired to write a story "which would frighten my reader as I myself had been frightened that night!" Lauritsen examines the Frankenstein text, along with works that Mary Shelley wrote entirely on her own, to demonstrate that she was a weak and sentimental writer, incapable of writing Frankenstein. He takes a long, hard look at the extra-textual evidence that has been used to argue for her authorship, and shows that none of it stands up to scrutiny. In reality, Frankenstein is not just a scary story, but a work of profound and radical ideas, written in poetically powerful prose by one of the greatest poets in the English language, Percy Bysshe Shelley. For personal reasons he chose to conceal his authorship. This book has three theses: 1. Frankenstein is a great work, which has consistently been underrated and misinterpreted. 2. The real author of Frankenstein is Percy Bysshe Shelley, not his second wife, Mary. 3. Male love is a central theme of rankenstein. According to Lauritsen, male love, as romantic male friendship, is a central theme of Frankenstein. Sometimes the expressions of male love are remarkably direct, but at other times they are expressed in coded language or references known only to the "initiated". He uses his skills as a gay historian to decode and interpret these references.

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An Original Argument.......2007-08-06

Lauristen, John."The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein", Pagan Press, 2007.

An Original Argument

Amos Lassen and Literary Pride

We have always been taught that Mary Shelley wrote the great gothic novel "Frankenstein", John Lauristen maintains otherwise. His thesis is that Mary Shelley was not the author but her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley is the actual author of the novel and that its basic theme is that of male love. In other words, Shelley, the male wrote the profound and complex work about the very masculine monster. It's an interesting theory and quite convincing. Using methods of literary criticism, Lauristen has created a page turner that is full of suspense and reads like a first class detective novel. The author is slick in letting his detractors undermine themselves and the amount of research done to produce this book is phenomenal. Lauristen used letters. Comments and the manuscript itself and in doing so recreates the world in which "Frankenstein" was created.
As a gay historian, the author reads the test from a homoerotic view and presents the sexual imagery and secretly coded social commentary in the book. It blows apart the past views of the novel as one-dimensional and his new approach gives him ways in which to interpret the text. Lauristen has challenged the literary canon and tears into the novel that he considers to have been part of a mythical undertaking.
What drew the author to his conclusion? He says it is based upon the various themes of the novel and the ideas of revolution, forgiveness, science, psychology, revenge and nature--all themes found in Percy Shelley. The evidence presented is very persuasive as Mary Shelley was not interested in these issues, Additionally, The author feels that Percy Shelley had strong feelings for other men and this is why the book can be so understood in homoerotic terms. But the most convincing argument of all lies in the poetry, the ideas and the imagination of the text. It is not a gothic thriller but rather a novel of profound and radical ideas which is written in prose that is poetically powerful. Lauristen also maintains that male love, as romantic male friendship, is a central theme of the novel and the references are sometimes quite direct and at other times quite hidden.
The book is actually quite funny and quite dangerous at the same time. It challenges some of the greats in the field of literary criticism but then some of the academics refuse to admit anything that is a bit offbeat. Here is true independent scholarship at its very best. Written in non academic language, it deals with a very academic subject. Here we have a great piece of literature with challenged authorship--a book that has been studies by both graduate students and undergrads. It is quite an engrossing read and I can't help but look at "Frankenstein" now with a new approach.

Lauritsen hits one out of the park.......2007-07-20

Some reviewers have said that "Lauritsen fails to make his case." In my opinion, these people are confessing to having a tin ear for the English language.

An interesting -- if bizarre -- comparison can be made to the famous parody of the Gettysburg Address as it would have been given by Eisenhower. It begins, "I haven't checked these figures, but some 87 years ago, it seems that a group of individuals organized a new sort of governmental set-up...." There is a HUGE difference between this incompetent prose and Lincoln's original.

Similarly, the male Shelley's original text of "Frankenstein" contains, on the second page, "What may not be expected in a country of eternal light?" Mary Shelley altered this text, deleting "of eternal light?" and shoving in the following: "ruled by different laws and in which numerous circumstances enforce a belief that the aspect of nature differs essentially from anything of which we have any experience." And you don't need a professor or a computer to notice that three sharp, exact words ("of eternal light") have been replaced by 27 vague, sloppy words which never really get to the point.

The "reason" behind this crime was apparently that Shelley was talking about the North Pole, and, yes, the sun only shines "eternally" for half the year there.

If you think that this is any way to write a poem, or a novel, I have some prime swampland in Florida to sell you -- or perhaps a nice bridge in the Manhattan vicinity.

In sum, I agree with Camille Paglia entirely. The book is funny, accurate, and deadly. But I predict a long, long battle with "the graves of academe." These professional literary fools have not yet come around to admitting that Walt Whitman was a lifelong lover of other men, even when we have the dates and time that he slept with his companions, and photographs, and all the rest. Just imagine how long it's going to take those folks to give up their feminist icon, Mary Shelley. Maybe 20 years? We don't seem to hear about Ada so much anymore, so there may be hope.

Boldly original scholarship.......2007-07-16

Readable and cogently argued, this book represents independent scholarship at its best. John Lauritsen is not afraid to go off the beaten path. He has shorn his style of scholarly impedimenta, but when references are necessary he gives them. His most controversial thesis, and one that will bring Academic Furies down on his head, is that Frankenstein, now one of the most read English novels, was not written by Mary Shelley, but by her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, the great poet. He convincingly presents and analyzes a vast amount of evidence, both textual and external. The real Mary Shelley had no sense of prose style. As Lauritsen puts it: "She could never have written Frankenstein."

Most interesting to me was the longest chapter ("Male Love in Frankenstein"), which takes the reader through the novel, following the thread of love and friendship between males. Here Lauritsen, as a well known gay historian, comes into his own. He shows that an early passage in Frankenstein, where Captain Robert Walton expresses his aching desire for a male friend, is almost a paraphrase from a passage in Shelley's "Essay on Friendship". He highlights passage after passage, all written in lush Shelleyan prose, which express romantic male friendship.

When Frankenstein was published anonymously in 1818, males were still being hanged in England for committing the "detestable & abominable Vice of Buggery." (Mary's name was first attached as author in her father's reprint of 1823, one year after Shelley's death.) Understandably, overt homosexual references are missing from Frankenstein, though undefined sexuality is present. The poor monster is sexually frustrated, rejected by everyone. At one point he tells his creator, Victor, that he is "consumed by a burning passion which you alone can gratify." Ostensibly he is asking Frankenstein to create a female monster for him; but he is really that horny, he wants Frankenstein to gratify him immediately, right on the spot. Bu this is left to the imagination.

Lauritsen's style is clear, concise and witty; sometimes it is quirky or cantankerous, and all the better for it. Five stars.

A Must read for any one posing as a n English scholar or who loves horror literary fiction.......2007-07-10

This is a wonderfully iconoclastic book, refreshingly written in non-academic language, and a persusuasive argument that Percy B Shelley and not his wife wrote the great horror classic. It is a must read for any student of English literature or any reader of Frankenstein. Whether you agree or not with Lauritsen's arguments, it is always important to challenge accepted academic wisdom. And there is very little real evidence that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstien or had the literary talent to do so. As for the homoerotic content of the novel, Lauritsen offers some intriguing examples of a homoerotic subtext throughout. CAmille PAglia, the famed critic, loved the book, and it is certainly well worth reading. A must read!!

A Persuasive Argument.......2007-07-09

John Lauritsen argues that Frankenstein is a great work of literature, that Percy Bysshe Shelley, not Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, is the author, and that the novel's dominant theme is male love.

I may be an easy mark for the first thesis because I have long considered the book a towering classic of English fiction, but I believe Lauritsen puts in a strong case.

The second thesis is the nearest an argument of this sort can get to a slam-dunk. The most compelling evidence is that which Lauritsen refers to with the phrase (from Aesop) HIC RHODUS, HIC SALTA, that is, Mary Shelley's later works do not begin to compare to Frankenstein in either scope or language.

The third thesis is dependent on the second, since Mary Shelley would not likely have written a book about male love. The importance of male friendship in the novel cannot be gainsaid. It is also clear that the novel is a moral allegory about intolerance. Lauritsen, however, goes beyond these two incontrovertible certainties and argues - persuasively - that the male friendships portrayed resonate as special friendships, and that the intolerance pilloried in the allegory reflects the specific intolerance of European society in Shelley's day toward gay men.

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Malice (Phronesis)
Francois Flahault , and Liz Heron
Manufacturer: Verso
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1859844812

Book Description

This book is about the inner roots of malice. It does not treat evil as a force external to human nature, as some kind of theological mystery. Malice is considered here as an anthropological fact. What stops us from examining this type of fact is our desire to keep evil at bay.

Despite our tendencies to separate the mind and body, good and evil, Flahault argues that both stem from the same source within us. This knot, inherent to the human condition, is the tension between our desire for absolute self-affirmation and the fact that each of us can only exist through mediation by others. The dependence on others weighs heavy on our shoulders, hampering our very existence.

Book Description

On a dark and stormy night in 1816, on the shore of Lake Geneva in Switzerland, Lord Byron, famed English poet, challenged his friends to a contestto write a ghost story. The assembled group included the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley; his lover (and future wife) Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin; Marys stepsister Claire Claremont; and Byrons physician, John William Polidori. The famous result of that night was Mary Shelleys Frankenstein, a work that appeared in print two years later and has retained its hold on the popular imagination for almost two centuries. Less well-known was Polidoris work, the first vampire novel. It too would inspire a legend (and most directly Bram Stokers Dracula), as well as many nightmares. And the evening begat a curse, too: Within a few years of Frankensteins publication, nearly all of those involved met untimely deaths. THE MONSTERS tells the riveting story of the real-life characters surrounding the creation of Mary Shelleys Frankenstein. It reveals not just the origins of two of the most famous monsters in popular culture, but the monstrous nature of the young people who gathered on the shore of Lake Geneva. Gripping and spooky, THE MONSTERS is unforgettable.

Customer Reviews:

Great Gothic History.......2007-05-21

This book focuses on the life of Mary Shelley, which was tragic. It appears to be well-researched (I don't know enough to contradict any of their conclusions) and was very interesting, one of my nightly "just before I go to sleep" reads. There is plenty of detail about the lives of Mary's parents, her family, her very famous husband, Percy, and other historical individuals, most notably Lord Byron. But the authors keep the pace moving and do not get bogged down in dull details.

I particularly enjoyed the fact that the authors freely gave their opinion on Mary and the people in her life, making the biography more accessible and less a dry textbook. There is some very interesting (and spooky) details about Percy's early death and Mary's bizarre reaction to it. They also attempt to dispel the lurid falsehoods told by Lord Byron's enemies and paint a portrait of the true man, one of Europe's first celebrity idols. He was still a bad character, and I cannot help but wonder how Mary's personal life would have improved if she and Percy had never met the man; however, would Frankenstein been written and Percy become a belated star?

I came away from the novel with a deep sense of pathos about Mary and a new sense of her greatness in literary history. In a way, Mary's life was a Gothic horror story, full of real life monstrous individuals.

I wasn't sure what to expect... .......2007-03-07

I bought this book because I was curious as to the origins of "Frankenstein" and walked away with a desire to learn a lot more about the central figures. The authors do an excellent job of recalling the life of Mary Shelley (which was tragic) and the rest of the group that met that "dark and stormy night" in 1816 to tell ghost stories.
Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and John Polidori were all figures I knew marginally but the Hooblers have made them live in the pages of this wonderfully diverse study. They were fascinating people.
I recommend this book wholeheartedly. There are very few biographies as engaging as "The Monsters". Anyone with an interest in literature, monsters or just interesting people will enjoy this book.

The Most Famous Gothic House Party Ever Held!.......2007-03-03

Outstanding biographical history of author Mary Shelley's life. Includes a detailed examination of the "haunted summer of 1816," where the most famous gothic "house party" ever held would serve as the inspiration for two classics of horror literature, John Polidori's The Vampyre and Mary Shelley's, Frankenstein.

A surprising error.......2007-03-02

I haven't finished the book yet. In a discussion of the novel's characters' names (p 155) the authors three times identify Victor Frankenstein's father as "Adolphus," when it is in fact "Alphonse." A very minor error, you might say. In fact the matter of names and language is not a trivial aspect of the novel, as the Hooblers themselves argue. The name Mary Shelley invents for Victor's father reflects a hybrid nationality that comes up repeatedly throughout the story (e.g. Victor is "by birth a Genevese" who was born in Naples, Italy and educated in Bavaria). "Adolphus Frankenstein" sounds just German. "Alphonse Frankenstein" suggests an amalgam of origins--not unlike the Creature?

Terrifically insightful look at the Diodati Circle.......2006-12-19

The Monsters by Dorothy & Thomas Hoobler is a fascinating read about the creation of the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. The book traces Mary's family tree as well as the other members of the Diodati circle in a way that gives a great deal of insight into their characters. Both Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron come off as the foolish geniuses they were. The authors spend a great deal of time sorting out the two men's various affairs, but apparently that's what they had to do as well! The real victim of these men and their foibles were their children. Percy and Mary lost four of their five children before the age of four. And Byron's abandonment of his daughter seems especially tragic as she died not long after. The Hooblers do a terrific job of analyzing Frankenstein in a way relevant for our time as well as Mary's, and they see parallels between Percy, William Godwin (Mary's father) and Dr. Victor Frankenstein. The insightful writing gives the reader extreme sympathy for Mary. She identified with the monster in her book because it had been rejected by its father figure, much as Mary was not only by her father, but also by her mentor Percy. The monsters in this book are not the kind of nightmares; they are the monster from Mary's famous book. Every one of them felt alone and cut off from the world, just like the monster. It's a universal human feeling, which is why Frankenstein has resonated through the years more strongly that Shelley's or Byron's poems, and the young woman who was ignored by the poets has outshone them finally.

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