This book explains the elimination of maternal characters in American, British, French, and German literature before 1890 by examining motherless creations: Pygmalion's statue, Frankenstein's creature, homunculi, automata, androids, golems, and steam men.

Wendy C. Nielsen is Associate Professor of English at Montclair State University, USA. She has published the book Women Warriors in Romantic Drama and scholarly essays on world literature, Romantic-era automata, theater, the French Revolution, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Olympe de Gouges, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Elizabeth Inchbald, Charlotte Corday, and Boadicea.

Introduction: Fictionality and Artificial Life

Part One, The Rationale for Creating Life without Mothers, 1650-1800

Chapter 1, Fables about the Birthing Body in the Long Eighteenth Century

Chapter 2, Automaton: The Analogy of 'Man a Machine' in Descartes and Obstetrics

Chapter 3, Pygmalion as Creator of Artificial Life

Part Two, Motherless Children in Literature of the Romantic Era, 1800-1832

Chapter 4, Homunculus and the Search for Immortality in Goethe's Faust

Chapter 5, Olympia and the Romance Scam in Hoffmann's The Sandman

Chapter 6, The Creature, his Companion, and the Singularity in Shelley's Frankenstein

Chapter 7, The Golem: A Reflection on the Purpose of Artificial Life

Part Three, Making Artificial Slaves in French and American Literature, 1850-1890

Chapter 8, The Sex Bot Hadaly in Villiers's Tomorrow's Eve

Chapter 9, Constructing Identity through the "Iron Slave" in Melville's The Bell-Tower

Chapter 10, White Supremacy in Ellis's The Steam Man

Conclusion

Bibliography

Illustrations