Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
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Frankenstein

Author: Mary Shelley

Narrator: Daniel Philpott,Jonathan Oliver, and Chris Larkin

Abridged: 2 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Naxos

Published: 03/30/2009


Synopsis

One of the greatest classic horror stories, Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel sees Dr Frankenstein manufacture life – The Monster – only to see it go beyond his control. The original novel is more sympathetic to the monster’s plight than is generally presented on film, making it an important book to be read. This abridged version with music is an ideal introduction to teenagers, making it a key release in the first year of Naxos AudioBooks’ new series ‘Young Adult Classics’. Comes with an embedded CD-ROM containing A Study Guide and both the abridged and unabridged text.

Author Bio

The daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, the ardent feminist and author of A Vindication on the Right of Women, and William Goodwin, the radical-anarchist philosopher and author of Lives of the Necromancers, Mary Goodwin was born into a free-thinking, revolutionary household in London on August 30, 1797. Educated mainly by her intellectual surroundings, she had little formal schooling, and at age sixteen, she eloped with the young poet Percy Bysshe Shelly; they eventually married in 1816.

Mary Shelly's life had many tragic elements: her mother died giving birth to Mary; her half-sister committed suicide; Percy's wife Harriet Shelly drowned herself and her unborn child after he ran off with Mary; William Goodwin disowned Mary and Shelly after the elopement but, heavily in debt, recanted and came to them for money; Mary's first child died soon after its birth; and in 1822 Percy Shelly drowned in the Gulf of La Spezia—Mary was not quite twenty-five then.

Mary did not begin to write seriously until the summer of 1816, when she and Shelly were living in Switzerland, neighbors to Lord Byron. One night following a contest to compose ghost stories, Mary conceived her masterpiece, Frankenstein. After her husband's death, she continued to write, publishing Valperga, The Last Man, Ladore, and Faulkner between 1823 and 1837, in addition to editing Percy's works. In 1838 she began to work on his biography, but due to poor health she completed only a fragment.

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