Frankenstein

Obsessed with the secret of life, young scientist Victor Frankenstein assembles a living being from dead matter — and recoils in horror the instant it opens its eyes. Abandoned by his creator and rejected by everyone he meets, the creature turns from gentle and lonely to vengeful, setting both of them on a collision course across the ice.

Written when Mary Shelley was eighteen, this is the book that essentially invented science fiction — and it's less a monster story than a story about what we owe the things we create. Still the sharpest, saddest gothic novel of its era.