Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

Mary Shelley was inspired to write *Frankenstein* during the famously cold "Year Without a Summer" in 1816 while staying at Lake Geneva with Lord Byron and Percy Shelley. The group held a competition to see who could write the best horror story, leading Shelley to conceive the tale of Victor Frankenstein and his grotesque creation.

The subtitle references Prometheus, the figure from Greek mythology who stole fire from the gods and was eternally punished. It directly parallels Victor Frankenstein's fatal ambition as he steals the secret of creating life, ultimately facing catastrophic consequences for overstepping human boundaries.

Unlike the grunting, bolt-necked creature popularized in Universal's 1931 film, Shelley's original monster is highly articulate, agile, and literate. He reads John Milton's *Paradise Lost* and deeply laments his own existence and societal rejection.

Victor Frankenstein constructs his creature in a secret laboratory at the University of Ingolstadt in Germany. It is here that he obsessively studies natural philosophy and chemistry, ultimately succeeding in bringing his artificial being to life using an unspecified scientific process.