For more than two hundred years, the story of young Dr. Victor Frankenstein and his creation has continued to capture the public's imagination and evoke emotion. Countless editions and adaptations of the work have been published worldwide, as well as references to it in other works.

Mary Shelley conceived the story of Frankenstein in 1816 during her stay with Lord Byron near Lake Geneva. The death of her first child profoundly affected Mary and seemed to shape the themes of her early novels.

Frankenstein was the product of her unusual imagination. Combining elements of Gothic horror with extreme natural realism and based on the sciences of biology and electricity, the author essentially laid the foundation for the literary genre of science fiction.