A new edition of Mary Shelley 's 1818 classic, Frankenstein . Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Though Frankenstein is very much a product of the Gothic and Romantic literary movements, it also can be thought of as the first true science fiction story, and has been highly influential on subsequent literature and popular culture, spawning a complete genre of horror stories, films, and plays. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797 – 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein ; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley . Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother was the philosopher and feminist activist Mary Wollstonecraft .