Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus

Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, a Gothic tale of terror by M. Shelley, published 1818.

Technically an epistolary novel, told through the letters of Walton, an English explorer in the Arctic, the tale relates the exploits of Frankenstein, an idealistic Genevan student of natural philosophy, who discovers at the university of Ingolstadt the secret of imparting life to inanimate matter. Collecting bones from charnel-houses, he constructs the semblance of a human being and gives it life. The creature, endowed with supernatural strength and size and terrible in appearance, inspires loathing in whoever sees it. Lonely and miserable (and educated in human emotion by studies of Goethe, Plutarch, and Paradise Lost), it turns upon its creator, and, failing to persuade him to provide a female counterpart, eventually murders his brother, his friend Clerval, and his bride Elizabeth. Frankenstein pursues it to the Arctic to destroy it, but dies in the pursuit, after relating his story to Walton. The monster declares that Frankenstein will be its last victim, and disappears to end its own life. This tale inspired many film versions, and has been regarded as the origin of modern science fiction, though it is also a version of the myth of the Noble Savage (see primitivism), in which a nature essentially good is corrupted by ill treatment. It is also remarkable for its description of nature, which owes much to the Shelleys' admiration for Wordsworth, Coleridge, and in particular the Ancient Mariner.