Alraune

About this book

A condemned murderer's body becomes the starting point for an experiment no scientist should have attempted. Frank Braun and a professor set out to create a child under circumstances they believe will produce something beyond ordinary humanity.

The girl they call Alraune grows into a beautiful, destructive presence whose influence unsettles everyone around her. Hanns Heinz Ewers draws on the mandrake legend, heredity theories and the decadence of early twentieth-century Europe. The novel's cruelty and sexual unease make it an especially dark variation on the Frankenstein story, with a human experiment at its centre.