Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is hailed as one of the greatest novels ever written about the human spirit. Shelley wrote this nineteenth-century sensation after his own life experiences. It has been called the first science fiction novel. Shelley lived a sad, melodramatic, improbable and tragically sentimental life. She was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, the brilliant feminist pioneer of the late eighteenth century. However, due to complications during childbirth and inadequate medical care, Shelley's mother died soon after her birth. Later, Shelley married the famous Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mary Shelley's masterpiece Frankenstein was inspired in part by Milton's Paradise Lost: "Did I ask thee, Maker, from my clay to mold me, man, did I solicit thee from the darkness to promote me?" The novel explores the theme of how society can ruin the good. through human alienation. Shelley powerfully expresses that theme through the development of Victor Frankenstein's failed aspirations, the creature's plight, and Frankenstein's inevitable destruction. Frankenstein is a novel about a creature created by a scientist driven by ambition. It first introduces Victor Frankenstein, the protagonist, and his interest in science. However, he has no interest in modern science as his father would like, he is attracted by the charm of alchemy and mystical sciences. substance of things or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man which occupied me, yet my researches were directed to the metaphysical, or in its highest sense, to the physical secrets of the... medium of paper... ....Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press, 1992. 245-58.Merriman, CD The Literature Network Inc, 2006. Web March 28, 2010. http://www.online-literature.com/shelley_mary/. Milton, John. Ed. Scott Elledge. 2nd ed.: Norton, 1975. Poovey, Mary March 29, 2010. http://www.jstor.org/stable/461877?seq=2Shelley, Mary Frankenstein Or, The Modern Prometheus: New American Library, 1963. Print.Smith , Johanna M. Introduction: biographical and historical contexts. Frankenstein. By Mary Shelley. 2000. 2nd ed. Bedford/St. Martins, 2000. Web. Wolf, Leonard. Commentary Frankenstein. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1977.