金石堂Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has endured in the popular imagination for two hundred years. Begun as a ghost story by an astonishingly young but intellectually mature eighteen-year-old author during a cold and rainy summer on the shores of Lake Geneva, the dramatic tale of Victor Frankenstein and his bolt-necked, stitched-together creature can been read as the ultimate parable of scientific hubris. Frankenstein, ＂the modern Prometheus,＂ tried to do what he should have left to Nature: create life. Although the novel is most often discussed in literary-historical terms -- as an example of Romanticism, of biographical interest for readers of the poets Percy Bysshe Shelley (Mary Shelley’s husband) and Lord Byron, as the first science fiction novel -- Mary Shelley was keenly aware of contemporary scientific developments and incorporated them into her story. Today -- in an era of synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, robotics, and genetic and climate engineering -- Frankenstein still has resonance for readers with a background or interest in science and engineering. This edition of Frankenstein, part of Arizona State University’s Frankenstein Bicentennial Project, offers annotations and essays on the scientific, technological, and ethical issues raised by Shelley’s text.
Essays byElizabeth Bear, Cory Doctorow, Heather E. Douglas, Josephine Johnson, Kate MacCord, Jane Maienschein, Anne K. Mellor, Alfred Nordman
