Frankenstein (33)

"Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil, as I

dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave, or

tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay?"

The following books will introduce you to Frankenstein, who said these words in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

To order a book, or for more information, follow the book title links to Amazon.com, then return home to browse other characters.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus: The 1818 text (World's Classics; Marilyn Butler, Ed.). : Oxford University Press, 1998. (pb)
- The first science fiction novel, which gave us the first mad scientist. Butler delves into the legendary origins of the story in the ghost-story contest among Mary, Percy Shelley, Byron, and their doctor friend, William Polidori, and explains how the 1818 text differs from later editions after the author became a sensation. Exquisitely written and worth discovering in the original, if you've only seen the films.
Levine, George and Knoepflmacher, U. C. (Eds.). The Endurance of Frankenstein. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.
- Charts Frankenstein's legacy in revealing detail. Includes an excellent film history of the character in all his variations.
Tenner, Edward. Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences. New York: Random House, 1997.
- Frankenstein was one of the first, but clearly not the last scientist to learn the hard way about the unintended consequences of a discovery.