프랑켄슈타인 / Frankenstein Or The Modern Prometheus (영문판)

메리 셸리 지음

아이보리잉크 2025년 05월 07일 출간

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책소개

* 이 도서는 영어만으로 구성되어 있습니다.
인간의 욕망과 과학의 윤리, 창조와 책임이라는 주제를 탐구한 고전적인 공포 소설이자 철학적 작품이다. 젊은 과학자 빅터 프랑켄슈타인은 생명을 창조하려는 집념 끝에 괴물을 탄생시키지만, 그 결과는 비극으로 치닫는다. 창조주와 피조물 사이의 갈등, 고독과 인간성에 대한 질문은 단순한 공포를 넘어 깊은 사유를 이끈다. 이 책은 메리 셸리의 섬세하고도 우아한 문체, 그리고 19세기 초 낭만주의적 표현을 직접 경험할 수 있는 기회를 제공한다.

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(참고) 분량: 약 10만자

책 속으로

To Mrs. Saville, England.
St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17—.
You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. I arrived here yesterday, and my first task is to assure my dear sister of my welfare and increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking.
I am already far north of London, and as I walk in the streets of Petersburgh, I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves and fills me with delight. Do you understand this feeling? This breeze, which has travelled from the regions towards which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes. Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent and vivid. I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight. There, Margaret, the sun is for ever visible, its broad disk just skirting the horizon and diffusing a perpetual splendour. There—for with your leave, my sister, I will put some trust in preceding navigators—there snow and frost are banished; and, sailing over a calm sea, we may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable globe. Its productions and features may be without example, as the phenomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in those undiscovered solitudes. What may not be expected in a country of eternal light? I may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle and may regulate a thousand celestial observations that require only this voyage to render their seeming eccentricities consistent for ever. I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man. These are my enticements, and they are sufficient to conquer all fear of danger or death and to induce me to commence this laborious voyage with the joy a child feels when he embarks in a little boat, with his holiday mates, on an expedition of discovery up his native river. But supposing all these conjectures to be false, you cannot contest the inestimable benefit which I shall confer on all mankind, to the last generation, by discovering a passage near the pole to those countries, to reach which at present so many months are requisite; or by ascertaining the secret of the magnet, which, if at all possible, can only be effected by an undertaking such as mine.
These reflections have dispelled the agitation with which I began my letter, and I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven, for nothing contributes so much to tranquillise the mind as a steady purpose—a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. This expedition has been the favourite dream of my early years. I have read with ardour the accounts of the various voyages which have been made in the prospect of arriving at the North Pacific Ocean through the seas which surround the pole. You may remember that a history of all the voyages made for purposes of discovery composed the whole of our good Uncle Thomas’ library. My education was neglected, yet I was passionately fond of reading. These volumes were my study day and night, and my familiarity with them increased that regret which I had felt, as a child, on learning that my father’s dying injunction had forbidden my uncle to allow me to embark in a seafaring life.
These visions faded when I perused, for the first time, those poets whose effusions entranced my soul and lifted it to heaven. I also became a poet and for one year lived in a paradise of my own creation; I imagined that I also might obtain a niche in the temple where the names of Homer and Shakespeare are consecrated. You are well acquainted with my failure and how heavily I bore the disappointment. But just at that time I inherited the fortune of my cousin, and my thoughts were turned into the channel of their earlier bent.

작가정보

저자(글) 메리 셸리

메리 셸리(Mary Shelley, 1797-1851)는 영국의 소설가이자 에세이스트로, 현대 공포와 SF 문학의 시초로 평가받는 저자이다. 여성 작가로서는 드물게 인간 존재, 과학, 윤리라는 철학적 주제를 깊이 있게 다룬 작품을 남겼다. 그녀는 시인 퍼시 비시 셸리와의 결혼으로도 유명하며, 아버지 윌리엄 고드윈과 어머니 메리 울스턴크래프트 역시 저명한 사상가였다.