Pearson Techonology Group - Frankenstein: A Longman Cultural Edition

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Frankenstein: A Longman Cultural Edition 1/e

Mary Shelley
Susan J. Wolfson
Published August 2002 by Longman
Copyright 2003, 384 pp., Paper
ISBN: 0-321-09698-3

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$8.00
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In-Stock

Summary

This edition of Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, presents Mary Shelley's remarkable novel in several provocative and illuminating contexts, cultural, critical and literary. KEY TOPICS: As part of Longman's new Cultural Edition series of novels, Susan Wolfson presents the 1818 version of Mary Shelley's famous novel in its cultural and historical contexts. Like all great works of fiction, Frankenstein gains depth and dimension from its "conversation" with contemporary texts, especially by Shelley's parents, husband, and friends. In addition to the 1818 text, this cultural edition features the introduction to and a sample revision of the 1831 version. A lively introduction to the edition is complemented by a chronology coordinating Shelley's life with key historical events and a speculative calendar of the novel's events in the late eighteenth century. MARKET: For those interested in reading and critically analyzing literature.

Features

Complete 1818 edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein , with a provocative introduction to Mary Shelley and the novel and helpful footnotes identify sources, references, and allusions.

A sample of the 1831 revision, the adoption of Elizabeth Lavenza by the Frankensteins, provides a contrast to the rejected creature, replete with overtones of racial thinking and class prejudice.

Table of dates presents Mary Shelley's life and the development of Frankenstein in relation to key historical events and publications during the age.

Texts from Shelley's Romantic contemporaries in the section on "Monsters, Visionaries and Mary Shelley" provide the contexts for allusions, references, and collateral productions, such as Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, Wollstonecraft's Story of Jemima from Maria, Mary Shelley's journal entry on the death of her baby, Percy Shelley's poetry, Byron's poetry and ghost-story, the first stage version of Frankenstein, and Dr. Spock on "Baby and Child Care."

Selections from 14 contemporary reviews of the 1818 novel, including those by Sir Walter Scott and Percy Shelley, illustrate what shocked the reviewers, and the popularly held belief that "only a man could write this novel."

An entire section on the connection between Frankenstein and Milton's Paradise Lost in "Milton's Satan and Romantic Imaginations" demonstrates the complex references to Milton's work throughout the novel. The selections include Paradise Lost and the chapter in Genesis (1-2) from the Old Testament, along with Shelley's contemporary Romantics on Satan: Godwin, Byron, Keats, Hazlitt, Percy Shelley, and DeQuincey.

A bibliography of critical studies on Frankenstein; the history of stage and cinematic interpretations; a guide for the student, the browser, and the curious provide suggestions for further reading and viewing.