Audiobook · read by volunteers
Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851)
Read by Eric Connover, Carl Cravens, Kara Shallenberg (1969-2023), ianish, Paula Berinstein, Alex Foster, Mark Bradford, Karen Labenz, Kristen McQuillin, Gord Mackenzie · 22 chapters · 8 h 16
About the book
A young scientist, obsessed with the secret of life, discovers how to bring lifeless matter to life. Victor Frankenstein builds a creature from assembled parts and, horrified by what he has made, abandons it. The being, who is never given a name in the book, is left alone, rejected by every human he meets, and vows revenge on his creator. What follows is a dark tale of ambition, responsibility, loneliness and pursuit, set across Europe and in the frozen north. Told through letters, confessions and the creature's own eloquent testimony, Mary Shelley's novel is far richer and more disturbing than its many adaptations. Ten LibriVox volunteers, among them Eric Connover and Carl Cravens, read the twenty-two sections across about eight hours and a quarter, making this a gripping listen.
Introduction
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851) was an English writer who published Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus in 1818, when she was still in her early twenties. She began the story, as is often told, during a summer in Switzerland when she and her companions challenged each other to write ghost stories. The novel appeared anonymously at first.
The book is often called the first major work of science fiction. It asks what duties a creator owes to a creation, and what a society does with those it rejects. The structure is layered: an explorer writes letters to his sister, and within them Victor tells his story, and within that the creature tells his own. This framework lets the reader hear different voices and weigh their claims, and the creature's eloquence is one of the novel's great surprises for those who know only the film versions.
The audio edition has 22 sections, beginning with the letters, and lasts about 8.3 hours. Ten LibriVox volunteers share the reading.
Why listen today? Frankenstein is a foundational work of modern fiction, and its questions about science, responsibility and loneliness have only become more pressing. Hearing it in full gives a very different impression from the popular image of the monster, and many listeners are struck by how humane the book is. Many listeners are surprised by how much of the novel is concerned with sympathy. The creature's long speech, in which he explains how he learned about the world, is the emotional centre of the book, and a spoken performance gives it great power. It is a story that continues to provoke debate about science and ethics.
Public domain
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley died in 1851: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text