Mary Shelley

Frankenstein

Name: Frankenstein
Author: Mary Shelley

Classic Novels

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Language: English
First published: 1818
Reading time: 326 minutes
Chapters: 28 chapters

About this book

A young scientist, Victor Frankenstein, discovers how to give life to dead matter, builds a living being and then runs from what he has made.

Rejected by everyone it meets, the creature learns to speak, to read and to suffer, and it comes looking for its maker. Mary Shelley began the story as a teenager, and her novel, told through the letters of an Arctic explorer, has shaped two centuries of stories about science that goes too far. This is her revised text of 1831. Read it for its dark atmosphere and its moving questions about responsibility.

You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. I arrived here yesterday, and my first task is to assure my dear sister of my welfare and increasing confidence in…

Letter 1

About this edition

Source
Project Gutenberg (eBook #84)
Text version
Project Gutenberg eBook #84 (updated 10 February 2026), downloaded 7 November 2026: the revised text of 1831 (first published 1818). The title page and contents list were not imported; the four letters and 24 chapters are unchanged.
Category
Classic Novels
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