Frankenstein
A student builds a living man from dead matter, then abandons him, in the novel that invented science fiction.
Written by Mary Shelley when she was eighteen, Frankenstein follows a student who assembles a living being from dead matter and then flees from what he has made. The creature, abandoned and articulate, becomes one of literature’s great tragic figures, asking who the real monster is. It invented modern science fiction and has never stopped being argued about. Guillermo del Toro, who later filmed it, names it his first favourite book.
Recommended by 3 People
Erica Jong
I think we have that in Frankenstein – buried, of course, under all the Gothic stuff. If we think of Frankenstein in terms of reanimating the dead – finding a scientific, a magical way to bring back the dead – we can understand it in terms of Mary Shelley’s life. It reminds us, as women, of how new it is to be able to count on our children surviving.
Interview · August 2012
Colum McCann
This might, at first, seem to be a strange choice for a work that takes place at sea. But Shelley's novel begins with a startling scene of a dogsled, driven by a gigantic figure, fleeing across the Arctic ice . The novel, which is perfect for our times, is a moving exploration of science and philosophy and of course the damage we inflict on ourselves in our quest for power.
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