Frankenstein is considered to be one of the earliest examples of science fiction. Written by Mary Shelley it tells the story of scientist Victor Frankenstein and the catastrophic consequences of his attempts to create a perfect new being by activating a group of body parts with an electrical charge. The hideous monster that is born of Frankenstein's experiment wreaks havoc when it realises that it will never know the happiness that mere mortals can enjoy.

Author Biography

Mary Shelley was only eighteen when Lord Byron challenged a group of friends to write the best horror story. She fleshed out her original and this was accepted for publication when she was just twenty. Shelley wrote several novels after Frankenstein but none of them has stood the test of time, although in her lifetime she was taken seriously as a writer, especially of biographies. She died in 1851, thirty years after the tragic early death of her husband Percy.