Far from its popular image, the story of Frankenstein as told by Mary Shelley is not a tale that finds horror in a hideous "monster" or a "crazed" scientist. The darkness in the narrative is found in the profound loneliness of both Creator and Created as they seek one another in a tragic cycle of unfulfilled longing and revenge.

This powerful novel, first published in 1818, still surprises and shocks us with the fundamental questions about the moral boundaries of human discovery and helps us to question what it means to be human.