NYPL Point: Frankenstein, Making a Modern Monster

Zombies, vampires, and other undead ghouls dominate popular culture in the early 21st century to a degree that might have startled Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851), the English writer whose masterpiece Frankenstein kicked off the modern monster craze — and invented the literary genre of science fiction — with its publication in 1818. But the popularity of such creatures, indeed the enduring popularity of Shelley’s novel, lies in the essential questions that they embody: How is life created; what does it mean to be human; and is there such a thing as inherent good or evil? This edition of The New York Public Library’s Point tackles these eternal themes in relationship to Frankenstein with an essay by transmedia scholar Henry Jenkins, plus more than 70 images and dramatic audio readings drawn from The Carl H. Pzforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle at The New York Public Library as well as Oxford University’s Bodleian Libraries. Point Volume 1, Edition 4, Frankenstein: Making a Modern Monster, was compiled by Benjamin Holland-Arlen.