Frankenstein
Victor Frankenstein stitches life from death, and his creation — abandoned, shunned, eloquent — hunts him across Europe demanding a reckoning. The original science-fiction horror.
About this edition
Mary Shelley began this at eighteen, on a rainy holiday in Geneva, in response to a dare to write a ghost story. What she produced instead was the first novel to ask what we owe the things we make. The book is not the film version: no lab, no hunchbacked assistant, no shouted 'It's alive'. It is a creature who teaches himself language by listening at a wall, reads Paradise Lost, and asks his maker for one thing — company — and is refused. Victor Frankenstein's real crime is not creation but neglect. Two hundred years on, the questions are still open: who is responsible for a mind you set loose? This edition presents Shelley's complete text, chapter by chapter.
Chapter 1
Letter 1
_To Mrs. Saville, England._
St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17—.
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 the success of my undertaking.
I am already far north of London, and as I walk in the streets of Petersburgh, I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves and fills me with delight. Do you understand this feeling? This breeze, which has travelled from the regions towards which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes. Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent and vivid. I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight. There, Margaret, the sun is for ever visible, its broad disk just skirting the horizon and diffusing a perpetual splendour. There—for with your leave, my sister, I will put some trust in preceding navigators—there snow and frost are banished; and, sailing over a calm sea, we may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable globe. Its productions and features may be without example, as the phenomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in those undiscovered solitudes. What may not be expected in a country of eternal light? I may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle and may regulate a thousand celestial observations that require only this voyage to render their seeming eccentricities consistent for ever. I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man. These are my enticements, and they are sufficient to conquer all fear of danger or death and to induce me to commence this laborious voyage with the joy a child feels when he embarks in a little boat, with his holiday mates, on an expedition of discovery up his native river. But supposing all these conjectures to be false, you cannot contest the inestimable benefit which I shall confer on all mankind, to the last generation, by discovering a passage near the pole to those countries, to reach which at present so many months are requisite; or by ascertaining the secret of the magnet, which, if at all possible, can only be effected by an undertaking such as mine.
These reflections have dispelled the agitation with which I began my letter, and I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven, for nothing contributes so much to tranquillise the mind as a steady purpose—a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. This expedition has been the favourite dream of my early years. I have read with ardour the accounts of the various voyages which have been made in the prospect of arriving at the North Pacific Ocean through the seas which surround the pole. You may remember that a history of all the voyages made for purposes of discovery composed the whole of our good Uncle Thomas’ library. My education was neglected, yet I was passionately fond of reading. These volumes were my study day and night, and my familiarity with them increased that regret which I had felt, as a child, on learning that my father’s dying injunction had forbidden my uncle to allow me to embark in a seafaring life.
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Quick answers about Frankenstein
What is Frankenstein about?
Victor Frankenstein stitches life from death, and his creation — abandoned, shunned, eloquent — hunts him across Europe demanding a reckoning. The original science-fiction horror.
Is Frankenstein free to read?
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How long does it take to read?
This story runs 26 chapters — most readers finish in one sitting, and you can stop and return to any chapter using the contents list.
Who wrote it?
Classic Books — this is the complete public-domain text, published in its original form.