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August 30 is Frankenstein Day

In honor of Mary Shelley’s birthday, August 30th is observed as Frankenstein Day. Shelley’s novel is popularly credited as being the first science fiction novel written in English, and Frankenstein continues to be an influential novel. Here are some books to learn more about Mary Shelley’s life and times, as well as books carrying on Frankenstein’s legacy.

Frankenstein : or, The modern Prometheus

by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
 
A young Swiss scientist's discovery of the cause of generation leads to the creation of a hideous monster.

Angelika Frankenstein makes her match : a novel

by Sally Thorne

The younger sister of Victor Frankenstein embarks on her own project, resurrecting an intended beau who is more intent on uncovering his forgotten identity than in romance, in the new novel from the best-selling author of The Hating Game. 

The dark descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein

by Kiersten White

A dark reimagining of Shelley's classic is told from the point of view of Elizabeth, Victor Frankenstein's adopted sister, who as they enter adulthood is challenged to manage her brother's dangerous temper and inclination to pursue depraved experiments. By the best-selling author of the And I Darken series. 

Frankenstein : a cultural history

by Susan Tyler Hitchcock

A lighthearted history of the Frankenstein myth traces its origins in an unwed teen mother's 1816 nightmare, evaluates the shifts in period morality and science that shaped the story and its various interpretations, and considers the myriad invocations of the tale in a variety of formats.

Frankenstein : Junji Ito story collection

by Junji Ito

Junji Ito meets Mary Shelley! The master of horror manga bends all his skill into bringing the anguished and solitary monster--and the fouler beast who created him--to life with the brilliantly detailed chiaroscuro he is known for. Also included are six tales of Oshikiri--a high school student who lives in a decaying mansion connected to a haunted parallel world. Uncanny doppelgangers, unfortunately murdered friends, and a whole lot more are in store for him. Bonus: The Ito family dog! Thrill to the adventures of Non-non Ito, an adorable Maltese!

Frankenstein in Baghdad : a novel

by Amad Saadwi

Hadi, an eccentric scavenger in U.S.-occupied Baghdad, collects human body parts and cobbles them together into a single corpse, but discovers his creation is missing just as a series of strange murders begins to plague the city.

Frankissstein : a love story

by Jeanette Winterson

A transgender doctor falls in love with a celebrated professor who is leading the debate about artificial intelligence and conducting controversial experiments impacting cryogenics and the sex trade. By the author of Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

The lady and her monsters : a tale of dissections, real-life Dr. Frankensteins, and the creation of Mary Shelley's masterpiece

by Roseanne Montillo

Blending grotesque 19th-century science with literary creation, this fascinating volume, tracing the origins of the greatest horror story of all time, explores how Shelley and her contemporaries were intrigued by the occultists and scientists who risked everything to advance our understanding of human anatomy and medicine. 

Making the monster : the science behind Mary Shelly's Frankenstein

by Kathryn Harkup

Examines the science and scientists that influenced Mary Shelley and inspired her to write Frankenstein, describing the huge advances that took place in understanding electricity and human physiology at the beginning of the 19th century.

Mary and the birth of Frankenstein : a novel

by Anne Eekhout

A sapphic reimagining of Mary Shelley's youth, vividly exploring innocence, young love, gothic mystery and the roots of her literary masterpiece, Frankenstein. Provocative, wonderfully atmospheric and pulsing with emotion, Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein is a hypnotic ode to the power of imagination.

Mary's monster : love, madness, and how Mary Shelley created Frankenstein

by Lita Judge

A biography in free verse chronicles the life of the teenaged author who used her grief, pain, and passion to create the iconic book Frankenstein.

Mary Shelley : the strange true tale of Frankenstein's creator

by Catherine Reef

On the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein, comes a riveting biography of its author, Mary Shelley, whose life reads like a dark gothic novel, filled with scandal, death, drama, and one of the strangest love stories in literary history.

Mary Shelley : A Very Short Introduction

by Charlotte Gordon

Mary Shelley: A Very Short Introduction examines the distinctive voice and radical themes of Mary Shelley's writing, which broke conventions and stretched nineteenth century literary genres. It explores the context, background, and important ideas contained in Shelley's most famous novel. It also demonstrates the significance of her other writings. 

This monstrous thing

by Mackenzi Lee

A creative adaptation of Frankenstein is set in a world where mechanical people built from clockwork parts are shunned and where a young mechanic for illegal clockwork clients attempts to bring his brother back from the dead. 

Queer horror : a film guide

by Sean Abley

From the very beginnings of the artform, horror has been part of the cinema landscape. Despite some of the earliest iconic genre films being created by gay directors such as F.W. Murnau (Nosferatu) and James Whale (Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, Bride of Frankenstein), LGBTQIA characters have rarely been portrayed in full view. Instead, for decades, filmmakers have included "coded" content in their films with the homosexual experience translated into censor-friendly subtext for consumption by general audiences. Gradually, LGBTQIA characters and themes have moved from the background to the foreground as the horror genre has grown along with its audience's tastes and attitudes. Likewise, more and more LGBTQIA writers and directors have begun to offer their queer-centric takes on scary movies and today, "queer horror" is a thriving film genre unto itself. With more 900 entries, this critical filmography is a comprehensive, critical, yet playful examination of the history of LGBTQIA content in horror film. 

Our hideous progeny : a novel

by C. E. McGill

Determined to follow in the scientific footsteps of her great uncle Victor Frankenstein, Mary Saville and her husband, desperate to be accepted into the scientific community, construct their Creature and Mary finds herself contemplating disturbing questions and unexpected feelings for the hideous progeny she's grown to love.

Reproduction : a novel

by Louisa Hall

Drawing on both Mary Shelley's and her own painful experiences of pregnancy and childbirth, as well as the current state of the world, a novelist starts writing a contemporary Frankenstein based on the story of an old friend who mysteriously reappears in her life.

Victor Lavalle's Destroyer

by Victor Lavalle

On a dreary November night in 1792, Victor Frankenstein used natural-- and unnatural-- science to reanimate the dead. Victor eventually died, but the monster never did. It hid away in Antarctica and thought itself free of humanity. But the world isn't done with the monster and one descendant of the Frankenstein bloodline yet lives...