Stepping far afield from his medical studies, Victor Frankenstein brings to life a human form he has fashioned from scavenged organs and body parts. Horrified by his achievement, he turns his back on his creation, only to learn the danger of such neglect. As the creature educates itself and learns how cruel mankind can be to something that they deem monstrous, he demands that Victor make him a companion, an Eve to his Adam. When Victor refuses, his creation vows to make his creator's life miserable from that point on by destroying everything that he loves.

Written in 1818 when its author was only twenty years old, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has been hailed as both a landmark of Gothic horror fiction and the first modern science fiction story.