A success in its own right, Frankenstein stands out as an even greater triumph because of the unlikeliness of such an accomplishment by a female novelist at the time. The early nineteenth century was not an easy time to be a female writer, never mind a novelist. Though her novel is regularly classified a gothic-style or horror story, and is often looked at as one of the first of its kind, her contemporaries regarded it as a novel about ideas. More specifically, it did well to promote some of William Godwin's philosophy, nevertheless standing in explicit opposition to the idea that humans can achieve perfection, and it remains a testament to the ruin that can come of such an idea.
...
