Frankenstein

Mary Shelley started writing the Frankenstein story when she was 18, and it was published in London two years later. Her chilling tale of how Victor Frankenstein put together a creature by sewing together human parts is said to be the first true science fiction story. If you’ve never read it, or read it a long time ago, it’s definitely worth picking up again, as the subtleties of the original book, entitled Frankenstein: the Modern Prometheus, may have been displaced in your mind by the various cartoons and monster-movies connected to the original only by the name ‘Frankenstein’ (and some people, who haven’t read the book, think Frankenstein is the name of the monster, rather than the name of the scientist who put the creature together).

Read below why it’s one of the books most frequently recommended by the experts we’ve interviewed—on subjects as diverse as fear of death, women and society, and transhumanism. Note: make sure to read the 1818 uncensored edition.

Recommendations from our site

“Frankenstein can be seen as an experiment—or almost a laboratory—that brings together science and literature” Read more...

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Nick Groom, Literary Scholar

“Shelley had no truck with modesty and restraint, or doing what was expected of her. She let her imagination go as far as it could.” Read more...

Sarah Perry recommends the best Gothic Fiction

Sarah Perry, Novelist

“Does it speak directly to transhumanism? I think so.” Read more...

The best books on Transhumanism

Mark O'Connell, Journalist

“What a lot of commentators have said, and I believe it’s on the right track, is that Frankenstein’s own fear of death is fueling his revulsion to the creature.” Read more...

The best books on Fear of Death

Sheldon Solomon, Psychologist

“We never give credit to the fact that women have started whole genres of fiction.” Read more...

The best books on Women in Society

Erica Jong, Novelist

“Brian Aldiss has famously argued that science fiction starts with Mary Shelley’s novel, and many people have agreed with him.” Read more...

Adam Roberts recommends the best Science Fiction Classics

Adam Roberts, Novelist

“At the beginning of the novel, Doctor Frankenstein creates a monster who lives like a human being and has the heart of a human being too. But the monster is unloved and unlovable and he becomes what we would call nowadays a sociopath.” Read more...

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Stella Tillyard, Historian

Commentary

“The author has powers, both of conception and language, which employed in a happier direction might, perhaps, (we speak dubiously,) give him a name among those whose writings amuse or amend their fellow creatures; but we take the liberty of assuring him, and hope that he may be in a temper to listen to us, that the style which he has adopted in the present publication merely tends to defeat his own purpose, if he really had any other object in view than that of leaving the wearied reader, after a struggle between laughter and loathing, in doubt whether the head or the heart of the author be the most diseased.”

Review by John Wilson Croker in The Quarterly Review, January 1818