Frankenstein; or perhaps, The Modern Prometheus is actually an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the first edition was published anonymously in London on one January 1818, when she was twenty. The name of her first came out in the next edition, which was published in Paris in 1821. Frankenstein is actually a frame story written in epistolary form. It documents a fictional correspondence between Captain Robert Walton and the sister of his, Margaret Walton Saville. The story takes place in the eighteenth century (the letters are actually dated as "17 "). Robert Walton is actually a failed writer who sets out to explore the North Pole in hopes of expanding scientific knowledge. During the voyage, the crew spots a dog sled driven by a gigantic figure.