"In this new edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, David
Wootton's Introduction gives the reader both a clear and gripping
account of the biographical circumstances that led to the novel's
writing and the most striking and original interpretations of its
central themes and of the intellectual and cultural influences on
them. Offering a new account of the complex history of its
composition, and drawing upon his deep knowledge of eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century scientific debates, Wootton reveals the ways in
which the origins of Shelley's novel are inextricably linked to
conceptions of the origins of life itself. We have here a
transformative reading of one of the world's best-known
stories."—Laura Marcus, Goldsmiths' Professor of English Literature
and Fellow of New College, University of Oxford