Summary Now that he has reached Archangel in March, Robert Walton finds himself lonesome. He works steadily to ready a ship and crew but yearns for someone like himself to pass the time. Writing letters to his sister eases the loneliness somewhat, but he desires friendship. He tries to dismiss […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Letter 2 – To Mrs. Saville, EnglandSummary and Analysis Letter 1 – To Mrs. Saville, England
Summary This first letter, written on December 11, 17 — , is from Robert Walton in St. Petersburg, Russia to his sister Mrs. Saville in England. Walton is on an expedition to look for a passage through the Arctic Ocean to the North Pacific Ocean via the seas of the […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Letter 1 – To Mrs. Saville, EnglandSummary and Analysis Introduction to the 1831 Edition
Five writers gathered in Switzerland during the summer of 1816: Mary Shelley, her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, Claire Clairmont, and John William Polidori, Byron’s friend and physician. Mary’s publishers have asked her to tell about how her novel came to be written. She was only 19 years old […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Introduction to the 1831 EditionSummary and Analysis Preface to the 1817 Edition
Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote the Preface to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in September 1817. It immediately alludes to a “Dr. (Erasmus) Darwin,” which gives some medical and scientific credence to the novel that it might not have had. Percy Shelley also mentions the German philosophical writers who, at the time, were […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Preface to the 1817 EditionCharacter List
Victor Frankenstein Creator of the monster. Victor becomes obsessed with the idea of creating the human form and acts upon it. Immediately after creating the monster, he falls into a depression and fear. He leaves the school and returns home to his family, only to find tragedy there. Not fully […]
Read more Character ListAbout Frankenstein
Frankenstein is a unique novel in the canon of English literature. The novel seeks to find the answers to questions that no doubt perplexed Mary Shelley and the readers of her time. Shelley presents a unique character in Victor Frankenstein and his creation, the monster. It is as though there […]
Read more About FrankensteinBook Summary
The novel begins with explorer Robert Walton looking for a new passage from Russia to the Pacific Ocean via the Arctic Ocean. After weeks as sea, the crew of Walton’s ship finds an emaciated man, Victor Frankenstein, floating on an ice flow near death. In Walton’s series of letters to […]
Read more Book SummaryFrankenstein at a Glance
Frankenstein follows Victor Frankenstein’s triumph as he reanimates a dead body, and then his guilt for creating such a thing. When the “Frankenstein monster” realizes how he came to be and is rejected by mankind, he seeks revenge on his creator’s family to avenge his own sorrow. Mary Shelley first […]
Read more Frankenstein at a Glance