The Last Man
Shelley expands the question of human companionship into a future world devastated by plague.
Read our take
Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley
A creator abandons the being he brings to life, then struggles to escape the claims it makes on him.
- 1818
- 288
- Atmospheric
- Melancholy
- dark
- intimate
- lyrical
About Mary Shelley
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeVictor Frankenstein, a young student from Geneva, discovers how to animate lifeless matter. He recoils from the creature he has made and leaves it without care or guidance. Their accounts of what follows reach the reader through Robert Walton, an explorer whose own pursuit of knowledge has brought his ship into dangerous Arctic ice.
The story, in more detail
Victor tells Walton that his early ambition was to banish disease and overcome the limits of life. At Ingolstadt, that ambition absorbs his time, health and attention. When his experiment succeeds, he responds to the creature’s appearance with disgust, then relies on his friend Henry Clerval to nurse him through his own collapse.
The creature gives a different account of the aftermath. It learns to distinguish sensations, find food and shelter, and understand language by observing a family living in a cottage. Its education brings pleasure and sympathy, but also a clearer understanding of its exclusion from human company.
Walton writes these stories to his sister, Margaret Saville. He admires Victor, who is allowed to correct his notes, while the creature’s voice reaches him through Victor’s recollection. The final encounter gives Walton a chance to hear the creature directly.
Creation, abandonment and revenge
Victor’s younger brother William is murdered, and Justine Moritz is condemned after a portrait taken from the child is found in her clothing. Victor suspects his creature but keeps his secret. Justine later explains that pressure from her confessor made her confess falsely.
On an Alpine glacier, the creature persuades Victor to listen to its history. It describes learning from the De Lacy household, being driven away, killing William and placing the portrait to implicate a young woman. It demands a female companion and promises that they will leave human society.
Victor agrees, then destroys the unfinished companion while working on an Orkney island. The creature threatens to appear on his wedding night. Clerval is subsequently found murdered in Ireland, and Victor is detained before evidence of his whereabouts clears him of the charge.
How it ends — spoilers ahead
Victor interprets the wedding-night threat as a danger to himself and leaves Elizabeth alone while searching the inn at Evian. The creature kills her. After his father’s death, Victor pursues it north, eventually reaching Walton’s ship, where he dies.
Walton agrees to turn back when his crew demands an end to the expedition. He then finds the creature mourning over Victor’s body. It speaks of remorse and its intention to destroy itself, before departing on an ice raft. Walton watches it disappear, but does not witness its death.
Quotes from Frankenstein
I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend.
I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me; whose eyes would reply to mine.
Why we recommend it
Hear the creature explain its education
The cottage chapters follow its efforts to understand speech, books and kindness. They give the excluded being a history and arguments of its own.
Compare ambition with obligations to others
Victor neglects the creature and his family while Walton must answer to a crew. Their decisions make responsibility a practical question about people whose safety depends on them.
Follow the story through its different narrators
Walton records Victor, and Victor recounts the creature. Reading their claims beside their actions helps reveal where sympathy and self-justification influence the account.
What this book explores
The people in its pages
Victor Frankenstein
The Genevan student who creates a living being and narrates his history to Walton.
The creature
The unnamed being Victor brings to life, who learns to speak and recounts its own history.
Robert Walton
The English Arctic explorer whose letters contain Victor’s history and the novel’s ending.
Timeline
1816–1817
Shelley develops the story begun near Geneva into a novel. The surviving manuscripts show drafting and revision before the three-volume publication.
1818
The novel appears anonymously in London on January 1, in three volumes, published by Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones.
1831
Shelley publishes a revised one-volume text with a new introduction. It is a version of the same novel, not a separate sequel.
2018
Penguin Classics publishes the selected US paperback of the 1818 text on January 16, with editorial contributions by Charlotte Gordon and Charles E. Robinson.
Book editions
- Paperback
- Penguin Classics
- 2018
- 9780143131847
Reader reviews
Readers may also like
Mathilda
Shelley’s later novella gives another isolated narrator the task of writing a painful family history.
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The Metamorphosis
Kafka also follows a being whose altered body makes familiar relationships difficult, but places the crisis inside a household.
Read our takeFrankenstein: frequently asked questions
Is Frankenstein the creature’s name?
Frankenstein is Victor’s family name. The creature has no personal name in the novel, although different speakers call it a monster, a being or a demon.
What does Victor use to bring the creature to life?
He says that he discovers how to animate lifeless matter but refuses to explain the method to Walton. The text mentions instruments and a spark of being without supplying a reproducible procedure or the familiar cinematic laboratory sequence.
Which Frankenstein text does this guide follow?
The 1818 first edition, with three volumes and chapter numbering that restarts in each. Shelley revised the novel in 1831. Both belong to this one work.
Does the creature die at the end?
It tells Walton that it intends to destroy itself, then leaves on an ice raft. Walton sees it disappear into darkness and distance. The narrative does not show the announced death.
How old was Mary Shelley when she wrote Frankenstein?
She began the story in the summer of 1816, when she was eighteen, and developed it through 1817. She was twenty when it appeared anonymously in January 1818.
Which reading edition is listed?
Penguin Classics’ 2018 US paperback, Frankenstein: The 1818 Text, ISBN 9780143131847, 288 pages. The chapter references here come from the public 1818 transcription, rather than the paperback’s page numbers.
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References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document Frankenstein, its publication, and its place in literary history.
1Frankenstein
NovelMary Shelley, 1818Used forThe primary text represented by this page, used for descriptions of the work’s contents and for any quoted passages shown here.
2Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818 first edition), full text
WebsiteProject Gutenberg, eBook #41445, 1818Used forPrimary text for the plot, eighteen guide observations and two quotations. These chapters and the complete final Walton continuation were consulted; the whole novel is not claimed as read.
3Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus — manuscript and composition history
WebsiteThe Shelley-Godwin ArchiveUsed forArchive’s composition history verifies the 1816–1817 development, surviving manuscript stages and January 1, 1818 three-volume publication.
4Timeline of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Life
WebsiteBodleian LibrariesUsed forInstitutional timeline supports the 1816 beginning, 1818 anonymous publication and 1831 revision. Unrelated family dates are not used.
5Frankenstein: The 1818 Text — Penguin Classics 2018 edition
WebsitePenguin Random HouseUsed forPublisher record verifies the selected 2018 US paperback, ISBN, 288 pages and editorial credits. Contemporary introduction, chronology and essay were not read.
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Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
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