In this new edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, David Wootton's Introduction gives the reader both a clear and gripping account of the biographical circumstances that led to the novel's writing and the most striking and original interpretations of its central themes and of the intellectual and cultural influences on them.

Offering a new account of the complex history of its composition, and drawing upon his deep knowledge of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scientific debates, Wootton reveals the ways in which the origins of Shelley's novel are inextricably linked to conceptions of the origins of life itself. We have here a transformative reading of one of the world's best-known stories.
Laura Marcus, Goldsmiths' Professor of English Literature and Fellow of New College, University of Oxford

A superb edition of Shelley's troubling masterpiece, with lucid explanatory notes and rich contextual material on the biographical, cultural, and scientific background to the text. Wootton's Introduction is a tour de force of revisionist scholarship, and his bold new arguments about Frankenstein's reworking of Promethean myth, its engagement with Romantic-era science, and the sources and significance of its arctic frame-tale will set the agenda for future debate.
Thomas Keymer, Chancellor Henry N. R. Jackman University Professor of English, University of Toronto