• Reading Levels 3 - 5
English | History

Frankenstein

Frankenstein, also called The Modern Prometheus, was inspired by a competition held by Mary Shelley and her companions – including her to-be husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and their friend Lord Byron — at the Vila Diodati in 1816. The group competed to come up with the best GothicCharacterised by gloom, mystery and horror. tale of terror after being inspired by a chronicle of ghost stories. It took Shelley two years to write her contribution in full, but it would become a triumph of far greater proportions. It has been described as the first true work of science fiction, and has repeatedly been named among the top 100 best novels of all time. Synthesising Romantic and Gothic elements, it tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, an ambitious young scientist who seeks to animate a humanoid that he has stitched together out of various pilferedStolen. dead body parts. What Victor creates is physically horrifying, however, and he promptly abandons it. When they next encounter each other, the Creature is intent upon avenging himself against the whole of humankind. It has been read alternately by critics as a stark warning not to play God, or as the world’s most effective parenting manual.

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