HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential
classics. ?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?? Victor Frankenstein?s monster is stitched
together from the limbs of the dead, taken from ?the dissecting room and the
slaughter-house?. The result is a grotesque being who, rejected by his maker and
starved of human companionship, sets out on a journey to seek 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. Begun
when Mary Shelley was only eighteen years old and published two years later,
this chilling tale of a young scientist?s desire to create life ? and the
consequences of that creation ? still resonate today.