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Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

Speculative Fiction

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) is Mary Shelley's novel of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who assembles and animates a living being from dead tissue, then recoils from and abandons his own creation, setting in motion the tragedy that follows. Shelley conceived the story in the summer of 1816 near Geneva, during a ghost-story-writing contest proposed by Lord Byron; she was twenty when the novel was published anonymously two years later. Because its horror is grounded in the real scientific debates of its day over galvanism and the reanimation of dead matter, rather than in supernatural causes, scholars including Brian Aldiss have credited the novel as the first true work of science fiction as well as a landmark of Gothic fiction.

Facts
Classification
Audience
Children's 1
Original Language
Arabic 2
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Bulgarian 2
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Czech 2
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German 2
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Greek 2
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English 2
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Spanish 2
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Finnish 2
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French 2
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Irish 2
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Japanese 2
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Georgian 2
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Korean 2
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Romanian 2
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Serbian 2
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Turkish 2
Original Language
Chinese 2
Composed, From (Year)
1818 2
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
FAQs

What happened that led Mary Shelley to begin Frankenstein?

It began as a ghost story contest proposed by Lord Byron in Switzerland in 1816, and a waking vision supplied the opening idea.

In the summer of 1816 Mary Shelley was in Switzerland, near Lord Byron. The summer turned wet and unpleasant, and incessant rain kept the party indoors. They read volumes of German ghost stories translated into French, and Byron proposed that each of them write a ghost story. Shelley says in her 1831 introduction that for days she had no idea for one, until a waking vision of a pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the hideous thing he had put together gave her the beginning of the tale.
Connections

Associated With

Romanticism, Movements
Source The Norton Anthology of World Literature

Authored By

Mary Shelley, Authors
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica

Features Character

Frankenstein's Monster, Literary Characters
Source Frankenstein's Monster (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

In Genre

Gothic Fiction, Genres
Source The Norton Anthology of World Literature
Science Fiction, Genres

Widely credited, including by scholar Brian Aldiss, as the first true science fiction novel.

Source The Norton Anthology of World Literature
In the Other Atlases

Original Language

Arabic

Also in Language Atlas: the original language of this subject.

Bulgarian

Also in Language Atlas: the original language of this subject.

Czech

Also in Language Atlas: the original language of this subject.

English

Also in Language Atlas: the original language of this subject.

Finnish

Also in Language Atlas: the original language of this subject.

French

Also in Language Atlas: the original language of this subject.

Georgian

Also in Language Atlas: the original language of this subject.

German

Also in Language Atlas: the original language of this subject.

Greek

Also in Language Atlas: the original language of this subject.

Irish

Also in Language Atlas: the original language of this subject.

Japanese

Also in Language Atlas: the original language of this subject.

Korean

Also in Language Atlas: the original language of this subject.

Romanian

Also in Language Atlas: the original language of this subject.

Serbian

Also in Language Atlas: the original language of this subject.

Sinitic

Also in Language Atlas: the original language of this subject.

Spanish

Also in Language Atlas: the original language of this subject.

Turkish

Also in Language Atlas: the original language of this subject.

Originated In

United Kingdom

Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject originated.

Sources
1. Open Library: Frankenstein
Open LibrarySubjects
Quote, Subjects
English language, juvenile literature
View the Source
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.View the Source
The Norton Anthology of World Literature
W. W. Norton & Company
Frankenstein (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia)
  • Lead
    the first edition was published anonymously in London on 1 January 1818, when she was 20.
  • Lead sentence
    Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is an 1818 Gothic novel written by English author Mary Shelley.
View the Source
Frankenstein's Monster (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Character: Frankenstein's MonsterView the Source

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