Frankenstein

a novel by Mrs. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, wife of the poet Shelley. The story was published in 1817. Frankenstein is a young student who yearns to create a living being. The idea is borrowed doubtless from the old myths of Prometheus and Pygmalion, but, lacking the poetic beauty of the old tales, it seems the result of a morbid and despondent imagination. Frankenstein, after a long series of laboratory experiments, creates a monster from materials found in the dissecting room and succeeds in giving it life. Lacking soul, the creature is a fiend, who becomes the curse of the creator. He slays Frankenstein's friend, strangles his bride, and pursues him over land and sea. Finally Frankenstein dies on shipboard, and the monster leaps over the ship's side and disappears. As Frankenstein neglected name as well as soul in his creative experiments, his own name has come to be given to the monster, to whom frequent reference is made in literature. Mrs. Shelley's story possesses a strange, uncanny fascination for the average reader. It may, in this respect, be compared to Stevenson's Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde.