Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Not reprinted since its first edition, Mary Shelley's second novel is a major discovery of the Mary Shelley bicentenary of 1997. The novel's lack of success as a follow-up to Frankenstein was the result of its subject matter and unconventional approach to the genre of historical fiction, attributes that can only delight the twentieth-century reader. Shelley's mastery of the intricate details of thirteenth-century Tuscan politics is unique among women of her time, and her resolute filtering of the bloody heroics of the age through the sensibilities of two women who are destroyed by them reveals the feminist perspective missing so conspicuously from her first novel. The lastest addition to the acclaimed Women Writers in English series, this glittering novel from Romanticism's premier woman storyteller belongs on the shelves of all serious readers of English fiction.

Not reprinted since its first edition, Mary Shelley's second novel is a major discovery of the Mary Shelley bicentenary of 1997. The novel's lack of success as a follow-up to Frankenstein was the result of its subject matter and unconventional approach to the genre of historical fiction, attributes that can only delight the twentieth-century reader. Shelley's mastery of the intricate details of thirteenth-century Tuscan politics is unique among women of her time, and her resolute filtering of the bloody heroics of the age through the sensibilities of two women who are destroyed by them reveals the feminist perspective missing so conspicuously from her first novel. The lastest addition to the acclaimed Women Writers in English series, this glittering novel from Romanticism's premier woman storyteller belongs on the shelves of all serious readers of English fiction.

"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.

Few creatures of horror have seized readers' imaginations and held them for so long as the anguished monster of Shelley's "Frankenstein." The story of Victor Frankenstein's monstrous creation and the havoc it caused has enthralled generations of readers and inspired countless writers of horror and suspense. Includes the author's own 1831 introduction.

The California edition of the Pennyroyal Press, "Frankenstein" unites the dark side of Barry Moser's art with the classic 1818 text of Mary Shelley's tale of moral transfiguration. In a vivid sequence of woodcuts, the reader witnesses the birth of the 'monster' as Moser shapes him from darkness and gives him a form simultaneously ghastly in its malice and transfixing in its suffering.

Set in haunted castles or fantastic landscapes, Gothic tales became fashionable in the late 18th century with the publication of Walpole's "The Castle of Otranto". In addition to "Otranto", this volume contains editions of "Vathek", "The Monk" and "Frankenstein".

"Brings together the pwerful works of a mother/daughter combination... These novels will prove a foundation for any college-level course on literature and feminism." --The Bookwatch "A gripping tale of incestuous desire...vitalized by the powerful evocation of nature and the bolder passions of full-blown Romanticism." --Belles Lettres This volume for the first time brings together three extraordinary works of fiction by Mary Wollstonecraft, generally recognized as the mother of the feminist movement, and Mary Shelley.

The definitive account of Mary Shelley's life from her own pen is now available in a single softcover volume. Here we see even more vividly than in her letters her sympathetic identification with nature and her struggles with--and ultimate surrender to--the lifelong depression that followed her husband's death. Supplementing the text are extensive annotations, a chronology, a thorough index, maps of the Shelleys' travels, portraits of acquaintances, appendices giving biographical accounts of the members of Mary Shelley's social circles in Pisa and London, the Shelleys' reading lists, and a bibliography.

"James Rieger's Frankenstein is relatively special among editions: it is the definitive scholarly text, and it is also the most readable copy for the classroom and the general reader. . . . The Rieger Frankenstein is very simply the best edition of this tremendously important and popular novel."—William Veeder, University of Chicago

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel written by English author Mary Shelley (1797-1851) that tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a hideous, sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18, and the first edition of the novel was published anonymously in London on 1 January 1818, when she was 20. Her name first appeared on the second edition, published in 1823. Shelley travelled through Europe in 1814, journeying along the river Rhine in Germany with a stop in Gernsheim, which is 17 kilometres (11 mi) away from Frankenstein Castle, where, two centuries before, an alchemist was engaged in experiments. Later, she travelled in the region of Geneva (Switzerland)--where much of the story takes place--and the topic of galvanism and occult ideas were themes of conversation among her companions, particularly her lover and future husband, Percy Shelley. Mary, Percy and Lord Byron decided to have a competition to see who could write the best horror story. After thinking for days, Shelley dreamt about a scientist who created life and was horrified by what he had made; her dream later evolved into the novel's story. Frankenstein is infused with elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement. At the same time, it is an early example of science fiction. Brian Aldiss has argued that it should be considered the first true science fiction story because, in contrast to previous stories with fantastical elements resembling those of later science fiction, the central character "makes a deliberate decision" and "turns to modern experiments in the laboratory" to achieve fantastic results. It has had a considerable influence in literature and popular culture and spawned a complete genre of horror stories, films and plays. Since the novel's publication, the name "Frankenstein" has often been used to refer to the monster itself. This usage is considered erroneous, but some commentators regard it as well-established and acceptable. In the novel, Frankenstein's creation is identified by words such as "creature", "monster", "daemon", "wretch", "abortion", "fiend" and "it". Speaking to Victor Frankenstein, the monster says "I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel" (which ties to Lucifer in Paradise Lost, which the monster reads, and which relates to the disobedience of Prometheus in the book's subtitle). Source: Wikipedia