 Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, narrated by Simon Vance. This unabridged audiobook was produced in the year 2008 by Tantor Media, Inc., which holds the copyright there, too. Letter 1 To Mrs. Savile England, St. Petersburg, December 11, 17 You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. I arrived here yesterday, and my first task is to assure my dear sister of my welfare and increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking. I am already far north of London, and as I walk in the streets of Petersburg I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves and fills me with delight. Do you understand this feeling? This breeze, which has travelled from the regions towards which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climbs. Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent and vivid. I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation. It ever presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight. There, Margaret, the sun is forever visible, its broad disc just skirting the horizon and diffusing a perpetual splendour. There, for with your leave, my sister, I will put some trust in preceding navigators. There, snow and frost are banished. And sailing over a calm sea, we may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable globe. Its productions and features may be without example as the phenomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in those undiscovered solitudes. What may not be expected in a country of eternal light? I may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle and may regulate a thousand celestial observations that require only this voyage to render their seeming eccentricities consistent forever. I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with a sight of a part of the world never before visited and may tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man. These are my enticements, and they are sufficient to conquer all fear of danger or death and to induce me to commence this laborious voyage with the joy a child feels when he embarks in a little boat with his holiday mates on an expedition of discovery up his native river. But supposing all these conjectures to be false, you cannot contest the sample complete. Ready to continue?