Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Told in the form of a series of letters 'Frankenstein" follows a young and charismatic Victor Frankenstein as he attempts to make his mark on the world of science. Taking a number of body parts from various corpses, he brings a monstrous creation to life which instead of being his crowning glory, terrifies him. The nameless monster escapes from his lab, taking many innocent lives before Frankenstein can track it down again. Shelley took inspiration from her trips through Germany and the legends of Castle Frankenstein, where an allusive alchemist engaged in dark experiments two centuries before. It is a thrilling novel that has inspired a whole genre of horror, as well as countless films adaptations, most recently 'Victor Frankenstein" starring James McAvoy and Daniel Radcliffe.

Mary Shelley (1797-1851) was an English author of science fiction, historical fiction and travel writing who is best known for her classic novel 'Frankenstein" (1818). Shelley conceived of the idea for the novel at the age of eighteen when she was on holiday in Switzerland with Lord Byron and John William Polidori. Following the death of her husband and two children she returned to England with her only surviving son, to dedicate herself to his upbringing and writing professionally. She wrote numerous works in this time such as the apocalyptic novel 'The Last Man" (1826) and the historical fiction tale 'Valperga" (1823).

Brought to you by Penguin.

This Penguin Classic is performed by Rosalind Eleazar, star of The Personal History of David Copperfield. This definitive edition includes an introduction by Janet Todd.

These three works of fiction - two by Mary Wollstonecraft, the radical author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and one by her daughter Mary Shelley, creator of Frankenstein - are powerfully emotive stories that combine passion with forceful feminist argument. In Mary Wollstonecraft''s Mary, the heroine flees her young husband in order to nurse her dearest friend, Ann, and finds genuine love, while Maria tells of a desperate young woman who seeks consolation in the arms of another man after the loss of her child. And Mary Shelley''s Matilda - suppressed for over a century - tells the story of a woman alienated from society by the incestuous passion of her father. Humane, compassionate and highly controversial, these stories demonstrate the strongly original genius of their authors.

(P) Penguin Audio 2020

The Last Man is an apocalyptic, dystopian science fiction about a future Earth at the time of the late twenty-first century, ravaged by an unknown pandemic which quickly sweeps across the world.It also includes a discussion of English culture as a republic, with Mary Shelley sitting in meetings of the House of Commons to gain an insight into the governmental political system of the romantic era. Within the novel, she dedicates it highly to her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley who drowned in a shipwreck four years before the book's publication. It is also dedicated to her dear friend Lord Byron who adored the Greek isles which were eventually his place of death.The Last Man was severely suppressed at the time. It was not until the 1960s that the novel resurfaced for the public as a work of fiction, not prophesy. The Last Man is the first piece of dystopian fiction published, yet it is debated among literary critics whether The Last Man can be classed as a dystopian novel as it excludes political themes of repression and totalitarianism of the novels of later periods such as Orwell's 1984 or Huxley's Brave New World.

Mathilda is the finished draft of a short novel by Mary Shelley. Its adult theme, concerning a father"s incestuous love for his daughter and its consequences, meant that the manuscript was suppressed by Shelley"s own father, and not published until 1959, more than a hundred years after her death.