# Frankenstein

**Author:** Mary Shelley
**Lexile:** 1170L
**Grade range:** Grades 9–12
**Age range:** 14–18
**First published:** 1818
**Page count:** 288
**Genre:** Gothic Fiction
**ISBN-13:** `9780143131847`
**ISBN-10:** `0143131842`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/frankenstein
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

Victor Frankenstein, a young Swiss scientist, assembles a living being from dead flesh; the creature, rejected by its creator and by humanity, pursues Victor through Europe and the Arctic. Shelley's novel is common in 10th-grade World Literature units and AP Lit.

## Themes

- ambition and hubris
- responsibility for creation
- nature vs nurture
- isolation
- Romanticism
- science and ethics

## Content notes

- violence
- death of children
- grief

Common Sense Media age recommendation: 13+

## Where this book is assigned

### AP English Literature & Composition

- **recommended** · 11th grade — [source: AP Lit representative text](https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-english-literature-and-composition)

### AQA GCSE English Literature (8702)

- **required** · 9th grade — [source: Set text in the AQA GCSE English Literature (8702) specification, component: 19th-century novel. Specification for first teaching in 2015. Read 2026-10-03.](https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/english/gcse/english-8702/specification/subject-content/shakespeare-and-the-19th-century-novel)
- **required** · 10th grade — [source: Set text in the AQA GCSE English Literature (8702) specification, component: 19th-century novel. Specification for first teaching in 2015. Read 2026-10-03.](https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/english/gcse/english-8702/specification/subject-content/shakespeare-and-the-19th-century-novel)

### Common Core State Standards (ELA)

- **recommended** · 10th grade — [source: CCSS ELA Appendix B, grades 9-10 exemplar](https://www.nysed.gov/sites/default/files/programs/standards-instruction/appendix-b-text-exemplars-and-sample-performance-tasks.pdf)
- **recommended** · 10th grade · New York — [source: NY Next Gen Learning Standards grade 10 aligned reading](https://www.nysed.gov/)

### Pearson Edexcel GCSE English Literature (1ET0)

- **required** · 9th grade — [source: Set text in the Pearson Edexcel GCSE English Literature (1ET0) specification, component: 19th-century novel. Specification Issue 2, June 2019. Read 2026-10-03.](https://qualifications.pearson.com/content/dam/pdf/GCSE/English%20Literature/2015/specification-and-sample-assesment/9781446914359_GCSE_2015_L12_Englit.pdf)
- **required** · 10th grade — [source: Set text in the Pearson Edexcel GCSE English Literature (1ET0) specification, component: 19th-century novel. Specification Issue 2, June 2019. Read 2026-10-03.](https://qualifications.pearson.com/content/dam/pdf/GCSE/English%20Literature/2015/specification-and-sample-assesment/9781446914359_GCSE_2015_L12_Englit.pdf)

### Summer reading lists

- **required** · 12th grade · North Carolina — [source: Wesleyan Christian Academy (NC) — Summer Reading List 2025-2026, rising 9th-12th](https://www.wcatrojans.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Summer-Reading2025-26.pdf)

## Banned / challenged record

Documented removals or formal challenges in at least one school district in 1 state: TX. Source: [PEN America's Index of School Book Bans](https://pen.org/banned-book-list/) 2022-2024.

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