Product Description

'It was at Oxford that I first met Bysshe. We arrived at our college on the same day; confusing to a mere foreigner, it is called University College. I had seen him from my window and had been struck by his auburn locks'. The long-haired poet - 'Mad Shelley' - and the serious-minded student from Switzerland spark each other's animated interest in the new philosophy of science which is over-turning long-cherished beliefs. Perhaps there is no God. In which case, where is the divine spark, the soul? Can it be found in the human brain? The heart? The eyes? Victor Frankenstein begins his anatomy experiments in a barn in the secluded village of Headington, near Oxford. The coroner's office in Clarendon Street provides corpses - but they have often died of violence and drowning: they are damaged and putrifying. Victor moves his coils and jars and electrical fluids to a deserted pottery manufactury in Limehouse. And, from Limehouse, makes contact with the Doomesday Men - the resurrectionists. He pays better than any hospital for the bodies of the very recently dead. Even so, perfect specimens are hard to come by ...until that Thames-side dawn when Victor, waiting, wrapped in his greatcoat, on his wooden jetty, hears the splashing of oars and sees in the half-light that slung into the stern of the approaching boat is the corpse of a handsome young man, one hand trailing in the water.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #112373 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Review
`intelligent, beautiful and utterly chilling' --The Times

Review
"..a brilliant jeu d'esprit. Above all, it stands as a tribute to the power of the human imagination"

Review
'Casebook...is tremendous fun: it glows with intellectual enthusiasm and love for London'

Customer Reviews

Another Remarkable Novel From a Great London Novelist
In this, Ackroyd's latest novel, Victor Frankenstein is a contemporary and companion of Percy Bysshe Shelley at Oxford before Shelley gets sent down for publishing an atheistic pamphlet. Frankenstein eventually cuts short his own studies and joins his friend in London. Here he attends lectures on the new science of electricity and as an amateur anatomist wonders if it can be used to reanimate corpses.

After inheriting money upon the death of his father, he makes the acquaintance of a group of resurrection men who provide him with the cadavers he needs for his experimentation. But he unwittingly unleashes a terrible beast into the world...

I thoroughly enjoyed this, as I have all of Ackroyd's fiction (and non-fiction) that I've read. Here he carefully interposes a fictional character created by another writer - i.e. Victor Frankenstein - into the lives of real historical (mostly lierary) figures, and adds his own excellent fictional characters to the mix - Fred Shoebury, his mother etc. He's done this many times before of course, and this is one of his strengths.

The author has great fun with the major poets of the period. In addition to the fanciful and excitable Shelley, he also has cameos for Coleridge, Southey and Wordsworth, among others and there's lots of scholarly in-jokes (you won't believe the former identity of the monster he creates!) However, his greatest portrait is that of the fiercely intelligent and impulsive Lord Byron, who grows increasingly impossible and fiery as he's taken over by the demons that live within him.

And as Shelley's in here so is his wife Mary - the writer of the original `Frankenstein' novel. One scene is set in the chateau near Lake Geneva which saw the genesis of the original book.

This novel brilliantly evokes the sights, sounds and smells of pre-Victorian London. His descriptions of the stinking, muddy streets, the effluence of the Thames, the dark, low-ceilinged inns, the charnel houses. He's also clever at using place names that resonate with historical significance: Cheapside, Limehouse, St Pancras, Clerkenwell... Ackroyd is a master of the idioms of the time and there is not one single word of his narrative or dialogue that does not feel authentic.

I read the last few pages with my heart beating so fast I could hear it, but I don't know whether I was completely happy with the ending or not - which is why I've dropped a star. However, I am sure there will be many among its other readers who will think it brilliant.

Peter Ackroyd is a bona fide genius and we should treasure him.

Beautifully written, evocative and page-turning
This is an intriguingly-imagined and compelling story, mixing the startling and often heart-breaking exploits of the fictional Victor Frankenstein with real-life characters of his era, including Shelley, Byron, and Frankenstein's original creator, Mary Shelley. The writing is exquisite, and if Mr Ackroyd let any modern expressions slip through the net, I didn't spot them (and I am a pedant about such things...) The atmosphere and imagery of early 19th century London is so vivid it's almost possible to smell the river and the cobbled streets and gaols, and to see the resurrectionists striking their repulsive bargains with the infirmaries. The story unfolds with the measured control of a master and is a wonderful journey. The ending is absolutely remarkable - as a professional writer I should have spotted what was coming, but I didn't!

Nineteenth century galvanism *** 1/2 stars
`I was born in the Alpine region of Switzerland, my father owning much territory between Geneva and the village of Chamonix where my family resided.'

The novel starts in typical gothic mode with where the protagonist was born and grew up - here it is the Alps where the young Victor `exulted in storms'. He is `blessed by the poetry of nature itself' and wanting to learn the `secrets of nature', and of electricity in particular, he persuades his father to let him come to `practical' England to study at Oxford. There he becomes great friends with Percy, known as Bysshe, Shelley and later stays with him and his second wife Mary at Lord Byron's holiday villa near Lake Geneva. We all know that this is where Mary Shelley wrote the original Frankenstein as the house party amused each other with ghost stories. It was an amazing feat of the imagination for a nineteen year old - she was fascinated by the emergence of the power of science and by questions of what was monstrous in wanting to understand and to create life. In this novel she has been demoted from creator to small speaking part - it's ironic that that here she is robbed of her best known creation since she is so associated with feminism through her mother Mary Wollstonecraft.

The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein mixes fact, nineteenth century fiction and Ackroyd's twenty first century fiction with abandon. Harriet Shelley's life diverges most obviously - rather than being an educated daughter of a wealthy coffee shop owner here she is a East End girl working on a precursor to a factory production line. Harriet is murdered before Shelley meets wife number two in this alternate universe whereas in reality Shelley and Mary eloped whilst he and Harriet were separated. She committed suicide in real life, pregnant and abandoned both by Shelley and her new lover. Generally in this genre the new point of view shines a light on the original and on our assumptions - for example Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea on Jane Eyre. I can't help thinking that in this novel Ackroyd's characters have considerably less complexity than in real life and that Mary Shelley's original had more feeling for the monstrous.

Ackroyd is always great on London and creates the London of this time well with descriptions of Soho and Limehouse and the river, and of the resurrectionists bringing corpses to the hospital and for more money to Frankenstein. He is more convincing with these descriptions than with the romantic poets.

It's a good read but not Ackroyd at his best and for me the end was disappointing and formulaic.