Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein - Hardcover

Roszak, Theodore

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679762582 ISBN 13: 9780679762584

Publisher: Random House, 1995

Synopsis

The story of Victor Frankenstein, his quest for forbidden knowledge, and his creation of the Creature is told through the voice of Elizabeth, Victor's doomed fiance+a7e, in a candid, passionate retelling of Shelley's classic.

About this title

Review

The premise of this emotionally wrenching novel is that Elizabeth (an orphan) and Victor Frankenstein were raised from early childhood by Victor's mother to fulfill her dream of an alchemic union that would promote the cause of "feminine" magic in a world where "masculine" science rears its arrogant head. But her plans go catastrophically awry. This is a story of extraordinary depth--respectful to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, packed with scenes of mystic rituals and sexual explorations, and above all, filled with the voice of a strong, complex woman in devastating circumstances. (And you'll love the new perspective on the monster.)

From Publishers Weekly

How ironic that a woman who wrote as a man should, after nearly 200 years, be given such ardent voice by a man writing as a woman. Roszak, author of the seminal nonfiction work The Making of a Counterculture and several previous novels including Flicker, risks much and achieves all in this richly imagined, frankly erotic homage to Mary Shelley, who modeled Victor Frankenstein's murdered?and scarcely heard from?bride on herself. Elizabeth has her full say here, and what a supremely gothic?and feminist?tale she tells: of her secret birth and her upbringing by a gypsy midwife; of her adoption by freethinking Lady Caroline Frankenstein; of her initiation into a wicca group and her preparation for a "chymical marriage" to her foster brother Victor; and of her solo wanderings in the Swiss Alps and her formation of a telepathic relationship with a hideous stranger named Adam, leading to madness and death. Roszak cleverly has Sir Richard Walton, the narrator of Frankenstein, present this work. His antiphonal "editor's notes," with their condescending view of women and admiration for "manly" science, provide a solid historical framework and strategic links to Shelley's novel. Passionate and lyrical, rife with period details and underpinned by a thought-provoking subtext on gender relations and the nature of modern science, this spellbinder will send readers rushing to gobble up its precursor. Major ad/promo; Doubleday Book Club alternate; audio rights to Simon & Schuster.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0679762582
• ISBN 13: 9780679762584
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 425