![]() ![]() ![]() In 1925, the novelist Alexander Belyaev introduced mad scientists to the Russian people through the novel Professor Dowell's Head, in which the antagonist performs experimental head transplants on bodies stolen from the morgue, and reanimates the corpses. Wells's The Island of Doctor Moreau, in which the titular doctor-a controversial vivisectionist-has isolated himself entirely from civilisation in order to continue his experiments in surgically reshaping animals into humanoid forms, heedless of the suffering he causes. ![]() The book is said to be a precursor of a new genre, science fiction, although as an example of gothic horror it is connected with other antecedents as well. Frankenstein was trained as both an alchemist and a modern scientist, which makes him the bridge between two eras of an evolving archetype. Though the novel's title character, Victor Frankenstein, is a sympathetic character, the critical element of conducting experiments that cross "boundaries that ought not to be crossed", heedless of the consequences, is present in Shelley's novel. ![]() The prototypical fictional mad scientist was Victor Frankenstein, creator of his eponymous monster, who made his first appearance in 1818, in the novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley. Peter Cushing as Victor Frankenstein in The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) ![]()
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