Completely annotated and provided with maps, essays, and chilling illustrations, this unique edition of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" answers some of readers' most lingering questions, clarifies historical references, and probes into the sensitive biographical nature of Mary Shelley's landmark novel. One of the most influential masterpieces of horror in the English language, "Frankenstein" straddles science fiction, horror, romance, the weird tale, and the literary allegory. Aside from the monomaniacal student of dark arts, the pensive bride throttled in her uncreased wedding bed, and the dramatic landscapes of Arctic ice fields and alpine vistas, Frankenstein is the story of poor stewardship, failed fatherhood, lost innocence, painful alienation, social rejection, the entangled relationship between adoring love and septic hatred, and the unfairness of a world which evicts a warm, gentle, curious, and eager spirit based on the casing of its skin. It raises relevant questions of technology, scientific responsibility, racism, sexism, community, environmentalism, progressivism, tolerance, diversity, love, and social responsibility, all wrapped in a psychologically complex, chilling narrative of grave robbing, playing god, murder, necrophilia, sublimated sexuality, and existential horror.