Frankenstein : Annotated for Scientists, Engineers, and Creators of All Kinds

Resumen del libro

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has endured in the popular imagination for two hundred years. Begun as a ghost story by an intellectually and socially precocious eighteen-year-old author during a cold and rainy summer on the shores of Lake Geneva, the dramatic tale of Victor Frankenstein and his stitched-together creature can been read as the ultimate parable of scientific hubris. Victor, "the modern Prometheus," tried to do what he perhaps should have left to Nature: create life. Although the novel is most often discussed in literary-historical terms -- as a seminal example of romanticism or as a groundbreaking early work of science fiction -- Mary Shelley was keenly aware of contemporary scientific developments and incorporated them into her story. In our era of synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, robotics, and climate engineering, this edition of Frankenstein will resonate forcefully for readers with a background or interest in science and engineering, and anyone intrigued by the fundamental questions of creativity and responsibility. This edition of Frankenstein pairs the original 1818 version of the manuscript -- meticulously line-edited and amended by Charles E. Robinson, one of the world's preeminent authorities on the text -- with annotations and essays by leading scholars exploring the social and ethical aspects of scientific creativity raised by this remarkable story. The result is a unique and accessible edition of one of the most thought-provoking and influential novels ever written. Essays byElizabeth Bear, Cory Doctorow, Heather E. Douglas, Josephine Johnson, Kate MacCord, Jane Maienschein, Anne K. Mellor, Alfred Nordmann

Biografía del autor

Mary Shelley (Londres, 1797 x{0026} x02013; 1851) es una de las escritoras más importantes e influyentes del siglo xix. Fue hija del prestigioso pensador revolucionario William Godwin y Mary Wollstonecraft, precursora del feminismo moderno y autora de A Vindication of the Rights of Woman en 1792,que murió apenas diez días después de dar a luz a su hija. Con dieciséis años, Mary, por aquel entonces todavía apellidada Wollstonecraft Godwin, conoció al poeta Percy Bhysse Shelley, y enseguida emprendieron un largo viaje por Europa, hasta el famoso verano de 1816 que pasaronen Suiza, junto con lord Byron, el doctor Polidori y la prima de Mary. En esas noches concibió su ópera magna Frankenstein (o el moderno Prometeo), una de las novelas más leídas y estudiadas de la historia, y cuya leyenda acerca de su gestación ha suscitado mucha literatura. Viuda con apenas veinticinco años, siguió escribiendo y publicando novelas como El último hombre (1826) o Falkner(1837), y entregada a su único hijo hasta su muerte en 1851.