"Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" is a novel written by Mary Shelley about a monster produced by an unorthodox scientific experiment. In the novel, the reader is addressed by several storytellers whose perspectives on the issues at hand vary by their personal involvement and bias, leaving the reader to become yet another lens through which the truth of the matter must be filtered in order to reveal reliable material.
Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first edition was published anonymously in London in 1818. Shelley's name appears on the second edition, published in France in 1823.
Shelley had travelled the region in which the story takes place, and the topics of galvanism and other similar occult ideas were themes of conversation among her companions, particularly her future husband, Percy. Mary, Percy, Lord Byron, and John Polidori decided to have a competition to see who could write the best horror story. After thinking for weeks about what her possible storyline could be, Shelley dreamt about a scientist who created life and was horrified by what he had made. She then wrote Frankenstein.
Frankenstein is infused with some elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement and is also considered to be one of the earliest examples of science fiction.
