“If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear!”

Mary Shelley’s immortal classic, Frankenstein, weaves together themes of ambition, responsibility, isolation and the search for identity, as Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant but obsessive scientist, is driven to create a living being from lifeless body parts as he seeks to unlock the secrets of life and death. But after animating the creature, Victor is horrified by the result and abandons it to a world which shuns it. Cast aside and tormented by isolation and loneliness, the creature embarks on a tragic journey—and unleashes a terrifying campaign of revenge against his creator.

A timeless fusion of horror and philosophical depth, Frankenstein remains a haunting reflection on what it means to be human.

The daughter of feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft and political philosopher William Godwin, Mary Shelley (1797-1851) received a rich but informal education, often reading her parents’ works and engaging with radical thinkers. In 1814, she began a romantic relationship with poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (whom she later married), a union that was both passionate and tumultuous, marked by travel, tragedy, and literary collaboration.

In 1816, while staying near Lake Geneva with Shelley and Lord Byron, Mary conceived the idea for Frankenstein during a storytelling challenge. The novel, published anonymously in 1818 and later under her own name, explores themes of creation, ambition, and the consequences of playing God. Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus is a classic of gothic horror and is considered one of the earliest works of science fiction. It has been widely adapted across a variety of media.