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Frankenstein (Signet Classics) | |||||||
 
| 80% Recommended by our customers. Publisher: Signet Classics Catalog: Book Release date: 2000-08-08 Media: Paperback Number of pages: 240 Ean: 9780451527714 Book Isbn: 0451527712  Tip: compare prices with similar booksAuthor:
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 Written on September 3, 2007 Summary: Free SF Reader It is pretty surprising that something come up with almost on a whim to provide a diversion has come to be such an important text for two genres, both horror and science fiction. Victor Frankenstein's obsession with the creation of life ultimately ends in tragedy and death for those around him. Written on May 2, 2007 Summary: The Best Text (1818) of a Masterpiece Frankenstein is a great work, though one that has consistently been underrated and misrepresented. Frankenstein is, in the words of Donald H. Reiman, "the most seminal literary work of the Romantic period". It is a work of profound and radical ideas, written in poetically powerful prose. Frankenstein is not really a gothic novel, although its author sometimes employs gothic conventions and language, and even spoofs them. Rather, Frankenstein is an enduring myth, a novel of ideas, and above all, a moral allegory about the evil effects of intolerance and prejudice, ostracism and alienation, both to the victims of intolerance and to society at large. Since there are some good reviews here, I'll concentrate on this particular edition -- the Chicago edition edited by James Rieger. This is one of the two best editions of Frankenstein available (the other being the Norton Critical edition). Most importantly, this is the original 1818 edition, rather than the inferior, bowdlerized 1831 edition -- which is the most common, and the only one that was available for well over a century. James Rieger was the first editor to make the case for the superiority of the 1818 edition, and he did so convincingly enough that almost all scholars of English Romanticism now prefer the 1818 edition. Rieger took a lot of flak from feminist academics for asserting that Percy Bysshe Shelley was, at the very least, a minor collaborator. In my considered opinion, Shelley was the primary author, and Mary Shelley was merely his secretary. The appendices in this edition include the full text of John William Polidori's story, "The Vampyre: A Tale" and Byron's brief fragment of a vampire story. Rieger's comments on the 1831 Introduction (written ostensibly by Mary, but with much help from her father, William Godwin) are perceptive. Please check out my own book, The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein, which makes the case that Frankenstein was really written by Percy Bysshe Shelley, one of the greatest poets in the English language.  Written on April 28, 2007 Summary: Frankenstein: The Good and the Bad One reason why I don't like this book is because I don;t like scarcy books, but this is a very interesting book. I also think that it is totally cool that a woman wrote it because that proves that women can like spooky stories even if most don't. Written on April 15, 2007 Summary: Still the best Somehow, 175 years after it was first written, this story keeps holding our attention. Not just that, it says more to our modern world than it ever said before. Popularized versions of this story lack all the depth of Shelley's original. Yes, her monster was physically huge, powerful, and respulsive. In her version, though, he's a thinking, feeling, and deeply intelligent person. He is deeply hurt by the universal, unreasoning loathing that judges only his face - even from the man who created him. The creation has a majestic capacity for affection but, in a credible transformation of emotional alchemy, that whole capacity turns to rage. He is not an image of hate, but a mirror of it. The hubristic biotechnologist has an immediacy today that Shelley could scarcely have imagined. So, I think, does the vengeful lashing out by people who feel they have suffered grievous wrongs, leading to a deadly spiral of increasing hatred by all parties. I just hope that current readers will take the time needed to absorb this book properly - it was never paced for today's ADD-driven generation. //wiredweird Written on December 16, 2006 Summary: Gothic at its best Mary Shelley was the daughter of the famous feminist and author, Mary Wollstonecraft, who is best known for her work The Vindication of the Rights of Women. In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a young university student, Victor Frankenstein, obsesses with wanting to know the secret to life. He studies chemistry and natural philosophy with the goal of being able to create a human out of spare body parts. After months of constant work in his laboratory, Frankenstein attains his goal and brings his creation to life. Frankenstein is immediately overwrought by fear and remorse at the sight of his creation, a "monster." The next morning, he decides to destroy his creation but finds that the monster has escaped. The monster, unlike other humans, has no social preparation or education; thus, it is unequipped to take care of itself either physically or emotionally. The monster lives in the forest like an animal without knowledge of "self" or understanding of its surroundings. The monster happens upon a hut inhabited by a poor family and is able to find shelter in a shed adjacent to the hut. For several months, the monster starts to gain knowledge of human life by observing the daily life of the hut's inhabitants through a crack in the wall. The monster's education of language and letters begins when he listens to one of them learning the French language. During this period, the monster also learns of human society and comes to the realization that he is grotesque and alone in the world. Armed with his newfound ability to read, he reads three books that he found in a leather satchel in the woods. Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther, Milton's Paradise Lost, and a volume of Plutarch's Lives. The monster, not knowing any better, read these books thinking them to be facts about human history. From Plutarch's works, he learns of humankind's virtues. However, it is Paradise Lost that has a most interesting effect on the monster's understanding of self. The monster at first identifies with Adam, "I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence." The monster, armed only with his limited education, thought that he would introduce himself to the cottagers and depend on their virtue and benevolence; traits he believed from his readings that all humans possessed. However, soon after his first encounter with the cottagers, he is beaten and chased off because his ugliness frightens people. The monster is overwrought by a feeling of perplexity by this reaction, since he thought he would gain their trust and love, which he observed them generously give to each other on so many occasions. He receives further confirmation of how his ugliness repels people when, sometime later, he saves a young girl from drowning and the girl's father shoots at him because he is frightful to look at. The monster quickly realizes that the books really lied to him. He found no benevolence or virtue among humans, even from his creator. At every turn in his life, humans are judging him solely based on his looks. The monster soon realizes that it is not Adam, the perfect being enjoying the world, which he is most alike. Instead, he comes to realize that he most represents Satan. The monster is jealous of the happiness he sees humans enjoy that he has never attained for himself. The monster tells Frankenstein that he found his lab journal in his coat pocket and read it with increasing hate and despair as he came to understand what Frankenstein's intent was in creating him. The monster curses Frankenstein for making a creature so hideous that even his creator turned from him in disgust. Shelley's intent here is plain to see. "The fate of the monster suggests that proficiency in `the art of language' as he calls it, may not ensure one's position as a member of the `human kingdom." In a sense, she is showing that both her parents were mistaken when they advocated greater education reform for people. They thought education would make people better, which in turn would improve society for all. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein contradicts this belief. Starting with the full title of Mary Shelley's book, Frankenstein: or The Modern Prometheus one can instantly see that mythology was integral to her book. Lord Byron, poet and friend of the Shelley's was writing a poem entitled Prometheus, and Mary was reading the Prometheus legend in Aeschylus' works when she had a dream, which was the impetus for her book. The Greek god Prometheus, is known for two important tasks that he performed, he created man from clay, and he stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. The stealing of fire really angered Zeus because the giving of fire began an era of enlightenment for humankind. Zeus punished Prometheus by having him carried to a mountain, where an eagle would pick at his liver; it would grow back each day and the eagle would eat it again . The presence of fire and light in this gothic story helps to point to the similarities to Prometheus and Victor Frankenstein, the creator of the monster, in Shelley's book. The book uses light as a symbol of discovery, knowledge, and enlightenment. The natural world is full of hidden passages, and dark unknown scientific secrets; Victor's goal as a scientist is to grasp towards the light. Light is a by-product of fire that the monster learned quickly when he is living on his own. The monster experienced fires' duality when he first encountered it in an unattended fire in the woods. He is mesmerized by the fact that fire produces light in the darkness in the woods, but is shocked at the sensation of pain it gives him when he touches it. Victor is defiant of god in the same way that Prometheus was defiant of Zeus. Victor steals the secret of life from god and creates a human out of spare body parts. He does this out of an altruistic wish to spare humankind from the pain and suffering of death. Thus, Victor Frankenstein embodies both aspects of the Promethean myth creation and fire. Victor in a sense has the same experience with the fire of enlightenment similar to his monster; he is "burned" by the fire of enlightenment. Victor also suffers from the classic Greek tragic condition of hubris for his transgression against god and nature. The book also adopts two other great mythic legends. One is Adam from the Bible. Victor Frankenstein bears striking resemblance to Adam and his fall from grace for eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. The other is Satan, a mythic figure that Shelley admired from her readings in Milton's book Paradise Lost. In an interesting juxtaposition of booth myths, she expands on the motif of the fall from grace in her book when she portrays the monster comparing himself to Adam; after he read, Milton's book Paradise Lost. The monster tells Victor, that he at first identifies with Adam God's first creation. "I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence." However, after several incidents of mistreatment that he suffered from the humans he encountered in his travels; the monster soon realized that it is not Adam, the perfect being enjoying the world, which he was most alike. Instead, he came to realize that he most represented Satan. The monster's feelings of hatred and despair stem from the fact that humans found him grotesque to look at and would not accept him as a member of human society. The monster cursed Victor for making a creature so hideous that even his creator turned from him in disgust. Thus, it is obvious for all to see that Shelley's Frankenstein is replete with mythological references and they are central to the plot. This was required reading for a graduate course in the Humanities. Recommended reading for anyone interested in history, psychology, philosophy, and literature. |
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| Catalog | Book | Book | Book | Book | Book | Book |
| Release date | 2000-08-08 | 1961-01-01 | 1990-07-01 | 2001-02 | 1994-09-01 | 1983-12-01 |
| Media | Paperback | Mass Market Paperback | Paperback | Paperback | Paperback | Mass Market Paperback |
| Format | - | - | Unabridged | - | - | - |
| Number of pages | 240 | 268 | 72 | 215 | 224 | 352 |
| Ean | 9780451527714 | 9780451524935 | 9780486264646 | 9780393320978 | 9780385474542 | 9780553213102 |
| Book Isbn | 0451527712 | 0451524934 | 0486264645 | 0393320979 | 0385474547 | 0553213105 |
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