8 h 22 minAudiobook15 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 8 h 22 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · 205 pagesHardcover · 6 × 9 in · 205 pagesAbout this book
What does a creator owe the life he brings into the world—and then abandons?
Victor Frankenstein discovers how to give life to lifeless matter. But when his work succeeds, he cannot bear to look at the being he has made. In Mary Shelley’s Gothic science fiction novel, a young scientist’s hunger for discovery becomes a struggle with guilt, secrecy, and a responsibility he tries to escape.
Far away, a ship caught in Arctic ice carries Robert Walton, an explorer who listens to Victor’s terrible story. Within that account, the creature speaks for himself. Intelligent and sensitive, he learns to read and longs for companionship. His voice asks you to look beyond his appearance and consider what rejection does to a life.
What you’ll discover
- Creation without care Face the troubling gap between Victor’s power to make life and his willingness to protect it.
- The creature speaks Meet a being who reads, reasons, and grieves while searching for someone to welcome him.
- Voices within voices Listen as Walton, Victor, and the creature each ask you to judge another’s story.
- Ice, storms, and shadows Enter a Gothic world of frozen seas, mountain storms, and the loneliness of rejected lives.
- Ambition under question Explore what science demands of conscience, and what society owes those it refuses to accept.
Who will love it
For readers who love stories that raise questions about science, responsibility and loneliness, and for anyone who knows only the film monster and wants to discover the creature’s own voice.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A letter from the ice frames everything
- A happy childhood plants dangerous hungers
- Victor builds life and then flees it
- A child is killed and an innocent is blamed
- The creature tells how he learned to speak
- Rejected by all, he demands a companion
- Victor must choose between a promise and conscience
- What the story is really about
- How the book is told and what to notice
Who’s who
- Victor FrankensteinA brilliant Genevan student of natural science who creates a living being, then recoils from it and struggles with guilt and secrecy.
- The creatureThe being Victor makes, intelligent and sensitive, who teaches himself to speak and read and longs for companionship and acceptance.
- Robert WaltonAn English sea captain who hunts for a northern passage, writes letters to his sister, and hears Victor's story on the ice.
- Elizabeth LavenzaVictor's adopted cousin, raised in his family home, loyal and loving, and long expected to become his wife.
- Henry ClervalVictor's warm, poetic boyhood friend, who studies languages and nurses Victor through illness at Ingolstadt.
- Justine MoritzA gentle young servant, treated as one of the family, who is accused of a crime she did not commit.
- Alphonse FrankensteinVictor's father, a respected Genevan official who loves his family and wishes to see his son happy and settled.
- Felix De LaceyA young man living in poverty in a cottage with his blind father and sister, whom the creature watches and learns from.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
- On your phone, tablet, computer or Kindle, with the type as large as you like.
- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 8 h 22 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 15 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in, 205 pages: 9,95 USD when you start free, 15,95 USD on its own.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in, 205 pages: 16,95 USD when you start free, 22,95 USD on its own.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley · 1818
Victor Frankenstein creates a living being, then recoils from it, leaving his creation to search for love.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Frankenstein is a novel by Mary Shelley about a young scientist who builds a living being and then cannot bear to look at what he has made. Shelley began it in the summer of 1816, when she was very young.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A letter from the ice frames everything
The novel opens with four letters from Robert Walton to his sister, Margaret Saville, in England. Walton is a young man with a burning wish to reach the North Pole and to find a passage that no one has found. He writes from Saint Petersburg and then from Archangel, hiring sailors and dreaming of glory. He admits to loneliness, too. He has no friend who can share his hopes or correct his mistakes, and he longs for one.
Walton's ship sails north until it is hemmed in by ice. One day the crew sees a strange sight across the frozen sea, a sledge driven by a huge figure far off. The next morning, they find another sledge close by, with a man who is worn out, starving and nearly dead. The man is Victor Frankenstein, and the crew takes him aboard. Over many days Walton nurses him and slowly wins his trust.
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What is Frankenstein about?
It tells of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a living being from lifeless matter and then abandons it. The creature's search for love and the consequences of Victor's neglect drive the story.
Is Frankenstein the name of the monster?
No. Frankenstein is the scientist's surname. The creature has no name in the novel. Popular culture often calls the creature Frankenstein, but in the book he is Victor's creation, called a being, a wretch or a daemon.
Why did Mary Shelley write Frankenstein?
She began it in 1816 during a ghost story contest among friends near Lake Geneva, including Lord Byron and Percy Shelley. Her short tale grew into a novel, published anonymously in 1818.
The author
Mary Shelley
1797–1851 · English Gothic novelist
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English writer born in London in 1797. She lived in England and Italy and married the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1816. She wrote Frankenstein, published in 1818, and The Last Man, published in 1826. She died in London in 1851.
More by Mary Shelley
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