Book dossier

Frankenstein

by Christopher Frayling

On New Year's Day 1818, Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein was first published in an anonymous three-volume edition of 500 copies. Some thought the book was too radical in implication. A few found the central theme intriguing ... no-one predicted its success. This book, celebrating the two hundredth birthday of Frankenstein, traces, in colorful and engaging ways, the journey of Shelley's Frankenstein from limited edition literature to the bloodstream of contemporary culture. It includes new research on the novel's origins, and a facsimile reprint of the earliest-known manuscript version of the creation scene. Frankenstein's legacy is to be seen all over the world--on small and large screens, in print and online, on stage and on hoardings, in graphic novels, comics and even on cereal packets. From a Regency nightmare, Frankenstein's creature has even become a cuddly childhood companion--thoroughly munstered, so to speak. The real creation myth of modern times--the era of genetic engineering, three-parent babies, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, robotics and singularity, human/animal interfaces and secularism--is no longer Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The real creation myth is Frankenstein. -- Inside jacket flap.