essential threads in the fabric of our culture.One of the most enduring horror stories of all time, Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus has held readers spellbound since its publication in 1818. Written at a time when science was in its ascendancy, the novel spoke directly to popular fears about the dangers -- and the consequences -- of man's overstepping nature's boundaries.Inspired by a "waking dream," Mary Shelley set out to write a story that kindled "the mysterious fears of our nature." The story of Victor Frankenstein, a scientist obsessed with the desire to create life, and the monster he reanimates with electricity, lays bare the frailties -- both good and evil -- of the human heart. Frankenstein deserts his creature in horror, and the monster -- frightful, dangerous, abandoned, and yet longing for acceptance -- seems all too human in his yearning and isolation. Today the story resonates as a brilliant interpretation of the consequences of scientific inquiry and as a timeless illumination of the human soul and the monster that lurks within all of us.

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