2018 marks 200 years since the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a book that is just as relevant now as it was in 1818. Today, Shelley's creature lives on, as an embodiment of society's anxieties about where science is taking us.

In this episode, Philip Ball is joined by Miranda Seymour, Frank James and Angela Wright to discuss the context in which the book was written and how the tale has become a popular myth with a life of its own, independent of Shelley's original text.

Philip Ball is a science writer, writing regularly for Nature and having contributed to publications ranging from New Scientist to the New York Times.

Miranda Seymour is a leading biographer and critic whose definitive life of Mary Shelley (2000) examined the sources of Frankenstein in depth. She has also written an introduction to the Folio Frankenstein (2015).

Frank James is Professor of the History of Science and Head of Collections at the Royal Institution. His main research has been editing the Correspondence of Michael Faraday which is now complete in six volumes.

Angela Wright is Professor of Romantic Literature in the School of English at the University of Sheffield. She is a former co-President of the International Gothic Association (2013-17).