"...superb.... The introduction and appendices are particularly valuable ... accessible and illuminating."

"far better than any [other edition] on the market today"

This new edition of Mary Shelley's classic novel uses the 1818 text, which is a mocking exposé of leaders and achievers who leave desolation in their wake, showing mankind its choice - to live co-operatively or to die of selfishness. It is also a black comedy, and harder and wittier than the 1831 version with which we are more familiar. Drawing on new research, Marilyn Butler examines the novel in the context of the radical sciences, which were developing among much controversy in the years following the Napoleonic Wars, and shows how Frankenstein's experiment relates to a contemporary debate between the champions of materialist science and of received religion.

This book comes with an introduction and notes by Dr Siv Jansson, University of Greenwich. Begun when the author was only eighteen and conceived from a nightmare, "Frankenstein", is the deeply disturbing story of a monstrous creation which has terrified and chilled readers since its first publication in 1818. The novel has thus seared its way into the popular imagination while establishing itself as one of the pioneering works of modern science fiction.

Mary Shelley was born in 1797, only daughter of William Godwin the philosopher and writer and Mary Wollstonecraft, the radical author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Her mother died a few days after her birth. In 1814 she left England with Percy Bysshe Shelley, and married him in 1816 on the death of his wife. She returned to England inn 1823 after her husband's death. Shelley is best remembered as the author of Frankenstein, but she wrote several other works including novels, biographies and short stories. She died in 1851.

2008-08-30 Science and desire

Inevitably dated by style and pace, not to mention a somewhat heavy-handed way with analogy, this remains a touchstone for gothic and speculative fiction. Any horror comes purely from the internal dialogues of Victor Frankenstein himself, and from the taunts of his creation, rather than from the kind of vivid and bloody description that is the mark of more contemporary scary stuff.

Some interesting questions rear their heads about science and desire, inception and revenge, not to mention some seemingly unintended ones - for a book by the daughter of an early anarchist and an early feminist, both women and politics are surprisingly absent. But worth a look.