Frankenstein – or The Modern Prometheus is a well-known classic by Mary Shelley about a scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who creates a sentient creature through an unorthodox scientific experiment.
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Frankenstein – or The Modern Prometheus – Letter 1 (part 1)
You will be pleased to hear that no disaster has accompanied the start of an enterprise which you have regarded with such negative expectations. I arrived here yesterday, and my first task is to assure my dear sister of my well-being and growing confidence in the success of my venture.
I am already far north of London, and as I walk in the streets of Petersburg, I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which invigorates my nerves and fills me with joy. Do you understand this feeling? This breeze, which has travelled from the regions towards which I am heading, gives me a taste of those icy realms. Inspired by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more intense and vivid. I try in vain to be convinced that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it always appears to my imagination as a place of beauty and joy.
There, Margaret, the sun is forever visible, its broad disc just skirting the horizon and spreading a constant splendour. There—with your permission, my sister, I will place some trust in previous navigators—there snow and frost are absent; and, sailing over a calm sea, we may be carried to a land that surpasses in wonders and beauty every region so far discovered on the habitable earth. Its features and products may be unique, as the phenomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in those unexplored wildernesses.
Mary Shelley