Where has this absolute marvel of a book been all my life? Once I had read it one and a half years ago it immediately became a favourite, if not the favourite. It launched me into an obsession; I read the 1831 version six months later, annotating the hell out of it; I watched Mary Shelley (2017)—which I loved—twice, as well as a brilliant production from the National Theatre in London (with Benedict Cumberbatch as the creature and Johnny Lee Miller as Victor Frankenstein), which was luckily avaible online for free for a while. I also came to appreciate the 1994 film more, which I bought on VHS as a teenager, as it stays fairly true to the book, unlike the 1931 Hollywood production with its iconic design. (The old Hollywood film was by the way based on a play loosely based on the novel, hence the entirely different story.)

If you’re expecting creepy, gory horror, you might be disappointed. Through a modern lens, Frankenstein is not at all spooky. It’s all about the characters, what drives them, what makes them (in)human, monstrous. It’s about obsession, otherness, abandonment, ostracization, and the question of responsibility for ones actions and their consequences. All against the beautiful backdrop of sublime nature, reminiscent of the romantic poets of the time, including Lord Byron and Mary’s husband Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Frankenstein is an incredible piece of fiction. The OG gothic horror and SciFi novel. Mary Wollstonecraft-Shelley was nothing short of a genius.