Publication of Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was published anonymously in London on the first day of 1818, in three volumes. Its author, Mary Shelley, was only nineteen when she began it in the summer of 1816 at Lake Geneva, where she, her future husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron and John Polidori amused themselves by a challenge to write ghost stories. The novel tells of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a living being from lifeless matter and then abandons it in horror, with tragic consequences for both. Her name appeared on the second edition in 1823, and she revised the text in 1831. The book is regarded as an early work of science fiction and a classic of Gothic literature, and has been adapted for stage and screen many times.

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