Promethean Horrors

Name: Promethean Horrors
Author: Xavier Aldana Reyes

Classic Tales of Mad Science

Xavier Aldana Reyes

Publication: September 19, 2019
Publisher: British Library Publishing

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About the Book

From the imaginations of Gothic short-story writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mary Shelley and H. P. Lovecraft came one of the most complex of villains – the mad scientist. Promethean Horrors presents some of the greatest mad scientists ever created, as each cautionary tale explores the consequences of pushing nature too far.

These savants take many forms: there are malcontents who strive to create poisonous humans; technologists obsessed with genetic splicing; mesmerists interested in the way consciousness operates after death and inventors who believe in a hidden reality. United by an unhealthy obsession with wanting to reach beyond their circumstances, these mad scientists are marked by their magical capacity to alter the present, a gift that always comes at a price. . .

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British Library Tales of the Weird

The series

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Meet the author

Xavier Aldana Reyes

Xavier Aldana Reyes is Reader in English Literature and Film at Manchester Metropolitan University and a founding member of the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies. He works across modern and contemporary literature, cinema and television, from the early twentieth century to the present day.

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