In Search of Frankenstein Exploring The (ISBN 1861052537)

Interesting, but no In Search of Dracula:
The author was at a considerable disadvantage when he went in search of Frankenstein - there is no one historical figure who corresponds to Victor Frankenstein the way Vlad Tepes corresponds to Dracula. He solves this quandry by spending most of the book in search of Mary Shelley's travel itinerary instead, which can be interesting, but also as dreadfully boring and stuffy as any early English travelogue. Celebrity gossip about Percy and Byron is used to fill in extra pages - again interesting, but not what the cover promised. Overall, this was not the book I'd hoped for, a book that explores the history of the mad scientist concept as thoroughly as the vampire has been covered. It may still be worth reading, but only if you know what you're getting into.

Lots of real history that you never knew even existed before!:
The Frankenstein myth, or story, existed long before Hollywood and Boris Karloff got to it. In Mr Florescu's fine book, he has searched out and actually found the sources for these tales and the actual Castle Frankenstein where some of these stories had their beginning. There's the legend of Georg von Frankenstein and the "dragon monster" that terrorized the locale and how he did battle with it. There's another story that dates from the early 18th Century about the alchemist Dippel who claimed to have been able to create gold from base metals and also dabbled in the creation of an artificial man. Both these stories and a few others, Mr Florescu more than aptly proves, were more than likely the influence on Mary Wollstonecraft when she and the English poet Shelley had made their excursion down the Rhine. Fascinating history of the whole area and of the lives of Mary, Shelly and Byron living together in Switzerland. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is as intrigued as I am by such people and events. Don't pass this one up!

Call it a 2.5 rounded up:
This is a very well researched book, but not what I expected. I went into it thinking it would be like the "In Search of Dracula" book(s) by the same author and it is not. It basically delves into Mary Shelly's past and tries to disprove that the book and the title came to her in a dream vs. her actually just putting together local folklore. I don't quite know if the author is trying to accuse her of plagarism or what but it is not a book like his Dracula non fiction works. If you are interested in delving into a writers pysche and possibly finding how a very popular story came about then this book is for you. If you want to know about the Frankenstein family in depth as he did Dracula, this book is not for you.