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Jun 13, 2018 · Great change brings fear, as Fiona Sampson, author of a new biography of Mary Shelley tells BBC Culture: “With modernity – with the sense that humans are what there is, comes a sense of anxiety...
Mar 9, 2018 · Thunder, lightning and flickering candles. It sounds like the stuff of a horror story—and for Mary Shelley, it was. She wrote her masterpiece Frankenstein when she was just 19 years old, and the ...
- Summary: Preface
- Summary: Letter 1
- Summary: Letters 2–3
- Summary: Letter 4
- Analysis: Preface and Letters 1–4
Frankenstein opens with a preface, signed by Mary Shelley but commonly supposed to have been written by her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley. It states that the novel was begun during a summer vacation in the Swiss Alps, when unseasonably rainy weather and nights spent reading German ghost stories inspired the author and her literary companions to eng...
The novel itself begins with a series of letters from the explorer Robert Waltonto his sister, Margaret Saville. Walton, a well-to-do Englishman with a passion for seafaring, is the captain of a ship headed on a dangerous voyage to the North Pole. In the first letter, he tells his sister of the preparations leading up to his departure and of the de...
In the second letter, Walton bemoans his lack of friends. He feels lonely and isolated, too sophisticated to find comfort in his shipmates and too uneducated to find a sensitive soul with whom to share his dreams. He shows himself a Romantic, with his “love for the marvellous, a belief in the marvellous,” which pushes him along the perilous, lonely...
In the fourth letter, the ship stalls between huge sheets of ice, and Walton and his men spot a sledge guided by a gigantic creature about half a mile away. The next morning, they encounter another sledge stranded on an ice floe. All but one of the dogs drawing the sledge is dead, and the man on the sledge—not the man seen the night before—is emaci...
The preface to Frankensteinsets up the novel as entertainment, but with a serious twist—a science fiction that nonetheless captures “the truth of the elementary principles of human nature.” The works of Homer, Shakespeare, and Milton are held up as shining examples of the kind of work Frankenstein aspires to be. Incidentally, the reference to “Dr. ...
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Mar 6, 2024 · 2.1k. VIEWS. Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” is a timeless classic that has captivated readers for centuries. In this article, we will delve into the background, history, and creation of this iconic work of literature. Table of Contents. Introduction to Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” The Life of Mary Shelley. Historical Context of “Frankenstein”
Expert Answers. Tim Mbiti. | Certified Educator. Share Cite. Mary Shelly had varied reasons to include letters at the beginning of Frankenstein. The author brought Walton into focus in...
A short summary of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. This free synopsis covers all the crucial plot points of Frankenstein.
Frankenstein Summary. Robert Walton, the captain of a ship bound for the North Pole, writes a letter to his sister, Margaret Saville, in which he says that his crew members recently discovered a man adrift at sea. The man, Victor Frankenstein, offered to tell Walton his story. Frankenstein has a perfect childhood in Switzerland, with a loving ...
