The Wordsworth Classics covers a huge list of beloved works of literature in English and translations. This growing series is rigorously updated, with scholarly introductions and notes added to new titles.

This novel is the deeply disturbing story of a monstrous creation which has terrified and chilled readers ever since its first publication in 1818. The novel is the outcome of reflection on Gothic horror, galvanism, the then theories concerning the origin of life and the myth of Prometheus.

It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open...

Written when Mary Shelley was only nineteen-years old, this chilling tale of a young scientist's desire to create life still resonates today. Victor Frankenstein's monster is stitched together from the stolen limbs of the dead, and the result is a grotesque being who, rejected by his maker, sets out on a journey to reek his revenge. In the most famous gothic horror story ever told, Shelley confronts the limitations of science, the nature of human cruelty and the pathway to forgiveness with rich language and evocative imagery.