Annotated Frankenstein

Rating:
Summary: Not the Cliff's Notes
Review: A highly enjoyable read. Text plus context.

Contains the first edition version of Shelley's Frankenstein. Many illustrations, historical notes, and (for illustration only) Frankenstein film treatments. By itself, could adequately substitute any college-level study of the novel.

Rating:
Summary: Story behind the story
Review: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein requires a look at the context in order to understand its true value. As Wolf points out, Frankenstein is at time a poorly written work, with overelaborations and wordy dialogue. However, within the context of Mary Shelley's life, the book takes on an entirely new meaning: that of a creator's disenfranchisement from her creation (also, a woman's hatred of her own offspring). Writing from a time when birth control was primitive, and children were born (and died) often, Frankenstein is an unusual look into what it means to be a woman with creative energy that she cannot have control over. This deeper level of understanding is only accessible to me from the annotated version which Leonard Wolf has so nicely prepared.