# 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)

### Common Core State Standards (ELA)

- **recommended** · 10th grade — [source: CCSS ELA Appendix B, grades 9-10 exemplar](https://achievethecore.org/page/2699)
- **recommended** · 10th grade · New York — [source: NY Next Gen Learning Standards grade 10 aligned reading](https://www.nysed.gov/)

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