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Publication Date: 14/08/2008 ISBN: 9780199537150 Category:

Frankenstein

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Marilyn Butler

Publisher: Oxford University Press
Publication Date: 14/08/2008 ISBN: 9780199537150 Category:
Paperback / Softback

£5.06

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Description

Frankenstein was Mary Shelley’s immensely powerful contribution to the ghost stories which she, Percy Shelley, and Byron wrote one wet summer in Switzerland. Its protagonist is a young student of natural philosophy, who learns the secret of imparting life to a creature constructed from relics of the dead, with horrific consequences.

Frankenstein confronts some of the most feared innovations of evolutionism: topics such as degeneracy, hereditary disease, and mankind’s status as a species of animal. The text used here is from the 1818 edition, which is a mocking expose of leaders and achievers who leave desolation in their wake, showing mankind its choice – to live cooperatively or to die of selfishness. It is also a black comedy, and harder and wittier than the 1831 version with which we are more familiar.

Drawing on new research, Marilyn Butler examines the novel in the context of the radical sciences, which were developing among much controversy in the years following the Napoleonic Wars, and shows how Frankenstein’s experiment relates to a contemporary debate between the champions of materialist science and of received religion.

ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford’s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Publisher Review

‘The excellent introduction discusses the circumstances of its writing in the wider context of social and scientific controversy.’
Good Book Guide, January 1995 ‘this edition is worth a browse’
Daily Telegraph ‘makes the original 1818 text easily available, and there are good reasons for welcoming it … Butler’s introduction is a rich essay in historical contextualisation, emphasising the Shelleys’ early links with materialist physiology and showing how the 1831 edition reflected the broad intellectual changes of the intervening years.’
The English Association

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