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Jeanette Winterson
2 classic books for the price of 1: Vintage Monsters is a limited edition gift pack which consists of beautifully designed separate volumes of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Jeanette Winterson’s Sexing the Cherry . Vintage Monsters is just one of ten Vintage Classic Twins to collect. Each twin consists of two books: a specially designed limited edition of one modern classic title and one established classic work. The books in each pair have been carefully selected to provide a thought-provoking combination. Frankenstein : One freezing morning, a lone man wandering across the artic…
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Jeanette Winterson OBE is the author of ten novels, including Oranges are not the Only Fruit, The Passion and Sexing the Cherry ; a book of short stories, The World and Other Places ; a collection of essays, Art Objects as well as many other works, including children s books, screenplays and journalism. Her writing has won the Whitbread Award for Best First Novel, the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize, the E. M. Forster Award and the Prix d’argent at Cannes Film Festival.
topAbout the Book
2 classic books for the price of 1: Vintage Monsters is a limited edition gift pack which consists of beautifully designed separate volumes of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Jeanette Winterson’s Sexing the Cherry . Vintage Monsters is just one of ten Vintage Classic Twins to collect. Each twin consists of two books: a specially designed limited edition of one modern classic title and one established classic work. The books in each pair have been carefully selected to provide a thought-provoking combination. Frankenstein : One freezing morning, a lone man wandering across the artic ice caps is rescued from starvation by a ship s captain. Victor Frankenstein s story is one of ambition, murder and revenge. As a young scientist he pushed moral boundaries in order to cross the final scientific frontier and create life. But his creation is a monster stitched together from grave-robbed body parts who has no place in the world, and his life can only lead to tragedy. Sexing the Cherry : Sexing the Cherry follows the adventures of Jordan, an explorer, and his mother, the gigantic and violent ‘Dog Woman’. Jeanette Winterson’s stunning novel celebrates the power of the imagination as it juggles with our perception of history and reality; love and sex; lies and truths; and 12 dancing princesses who lived happily ever after, but not with their husbands.
topJeanette Winterson interview/review
Frankenstein
First published anonymously in 1818, Frankenstein was an instant best-seller. However, it was not particularly well received by the critics and had many unfavourable reviews. There was much speculation about the identity of the author.
But in spite of the reviews it was a great success and was widely read at the time. The third edition appeared in 1831, naming Mary Shelley as the author and containing many revisions, including the longer preface at the beginning of the novel where the author details the origination of the story. Other revisions included removing suggestions of an incestuous relationship between Victor and Elizabeth and placing Elizabeth as an adopted child.
‘…the novel Frankenstein is quite a read… It’s highly Romantic, in the literary sense…[there is] a good deal of attractive torment and self-doubt, from both Victor Frankenstein and his creation… If ever a book needed to be placed in context, it’s Frankenstein ’ New York Times Book Review , taken from Barnes and Noble.com
‘There never was a wilder story imagined, yet like most of the fictions of this age, it has an air of reality attached to it, by being connected with the favourite projects and passions of the times’ The Edinburgh Magazine , 1818
Sexing the Cherry
‘Read it and marvel. Jeanette Winterson’s voice is startlingly poetic and original, and her imaginative feats are utterly dazzling’ Cosmopolitan
‘Winterson breaks the mould of history and fiction alike in this intricately enjoyable book’ Mail on Sunday
‘Simple prose shows the subtlest of minds behind it, swift, confident and dazzling’ Financial Times
‘…to suggest that the novel is set in any one period or place would give a false impression, for Winterson wants to question customary thinking about what time is…she tells a dazzling tale, and Sexing the Cherry is a network of sharp and vivid stories. Her work has a solidity and point that is lodged in something firmer than fashion. Sexing the Cherry has a rare and winning quality: it cheers you up’ London Review of Books
AUTHOR INTERVIEWS
Mary Shelley
‘Many and long were the conversations between Lord Byron and Shelley, to which I was a devout but nearly silent listener. During one of these, various philosophical doctrines were discussed, and among others the nature of the principle of life, and whether there was any probability of its ever being discovered and communicated.
They talked of the experiments of Dr Darwin (I speak not of what the Doctor really did, or said that he did, but, as more to my purpose, of what was then spoken of as having been done by him,) who preserved a piece of vermicelli in a glass case, till by some extraordinary means it began to move with voluntary motion.
Not thus, after all, would life be given. Perhaps a corpse would be re-animated; galvanism had given token of such things: perhaps the component parts of a creature might be manufactured, brought together, and endured with vital warmth.
…When I placed my head on my pillow, I did not sleep, nor could I be said to think. My imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me, gifting the successive images that arose in my mind with vividness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie. I saw – with shut eyes, but acute mental vision, – I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion.’
Taken from Introduction to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein
Jeanette Winterson
Why did you set this one in the seventeenth century?
Why is this the last book you have set in the past?
The Passion
Sexing the Cherry
Do you think of The Passion and Sexing the Cherry as Magic Realism?
topStarting Points for Discussion
- There are multiple narrators in the two novels – the Dog Woman, Jordan, the Princesses, Frankenstein, the monster, Walton. How do the narrators compare both within each book and with each other? Have the authors used the multiple narrators to different effect in each of the books? Which narrator do you like best and why?
- Are there any similarities between the seventeenth-century Jordan and the nineteenth-century naval cadet Nicholas Jordan we meet at the end of Sexing the Cherry ? Look also at Walton and Frankenstein – are there any similarities there? How does each of the authors use the different narrators?
- Jordan undertakes voyages across foreign lands, discovering pineapples and to fantastical lands to find Fortunata. Frankenstein journeys across Europe and to England and Scotland, as does the monster. However, do you think Walton is the character from the two books who discovers most, both in terms of his own ambitions for the voyage he is on and in listening to Frankenstein’s story?
- Frankenstein’s monster is refuted by all who lay eyes on his physical being. How do the reactions of those he encounters differ from those the Dog Woman receives? Is she accepted by society or considered an outcast?
- Does the monster deserve the pity he claims society and Frankenstein did not give him? How does this compare to the Dog Woman – do you pity her? Does she deserve pity?
- The Sunday Times claimed ‘The Dog Woman is one of the most appealing, alarming giants in literature since Gargantua.’ Would you agree? How does Frankenstein’s monster fit in with this statement?
- The Dog Woman has committed many murders including her own father. Frankenstein’s monster murders Ernest, Clerval and Elizabeth. Are they both evil? Where does their evil come from, or are they born evil? Can they be forgiven? Are they the only characters in both of the books that could be considered evil?
- Sexing the Cherry is set at the beginning of the English Civil War. Frankenstein is set in the eighteenth century at the start of the Industrial Revolution. What relevance does the setting have to each of the stories? Is it an integral part of each of the books?
- Frankenstein was widely regarded to be the first science-fiction novel while Sexing the Cherry is fantastical – do you think there are any fantastical elements in Frankenstein? Is it possible to compare the two as fantastical novels or are they distinctly separated as science and fantasy?
- Frankenstein’s monster is inadvertently taught how to read by the De Lacey family, while John Tradescant is something of a teacher and mentor for Jordan. What do each of the teachers offer to their protagonists?
Other Books by Jeanette Winterson
Art And Lies: A Piece for …
‘There is no such thing as autobiography, there is only art and lies’ Set in…
Art Objects: Essays on Ec…
These interlocking essays uncover art as an active force in the world – neither…
Boating For Beginners
Oranges Are Not The Only …
This is the story of Jeanette, adopted and brought up by her mother as one of…
Oranges are Not the Only …
This is the story of Jeanette, adopted and brought up by her mother as one of…
Sexing The Cherry
Set in the 17th century, Sexing the Cherry celebrates the power of the im…
The Passion
Henri had a passion for Napoleon and Napoleon had a passion for chicken. From…
The Powerbook
To avoid discovery I stay on the run. To discover things for myself, I stay on…
The World And Other Places…
Suggested Further Reading
- The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde ~ Robert Louis Stevenson
- Dracula ~ Bram Stoker
- Frankenstein’s Daughters: Women Writing Science Fiction ~ Jane Donawerth
- Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: The Classic Tale of Terror Reborn on Film ~ Kenneth Branagh
- Orlando ~ Virginia Woolf
- The Four Quartets ~ T. S. Eliot
- Wise Children ~ Angela Carter
- Jeanette Winterson (Contemporary British Novelists) ~ Susana Onega
- Frankenstein (film)
- Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (film)