Frankenstein, Or, the Modern Prometheus

Paperback, 550 pages

Published Oct. 18, 2018 by Franklin Classics Trade Press.

ISBN:: 978-0-343-73609-5

No rating (1 review)

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18, and the first edition was published anonymously in London on 1 January 1818, when she was 20. Her name first appeared in the second edition, which was published in Paris in 1821.

165 editions

Jim Brown reviewed Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley

Things I didn't expect

No rating

I had never read this, and I was surprised by a number of things: that we get a detailed account of the monster's learning process (which had me thinking of LLMs), that the Monster is smarter and more rhetorically savvy than Victor, and that the Monster's rhetorical skill is highlighted by Shelley (we hear of the monster's "sophistry" which then had me wondering: Is this where @sophist_monster comes from?

One last thought...this book is tale of what happens when science rejects aesthetics in the name of pure efficiency and function. If Victor had cared at all about what the monster looked like, then the entire story unfolds quite differently. The monster's hideous "countenance" (Shelley's favorite word by far, btw) is why he can't have a connection with person, regardless of how much he craves that connection.