in Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein (1818). Professor Radu Florescu suggests that Johann Konrad Dippel, an alchemist born in Castle Frankenstein, might have been the inspiration for Victor Frankenstein. German playwright Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part Two (1832) famously features an alchemically-created homunculus. Here, the character of Homunculus embodies the quest of a pure spirit to be born into a mortal form, contrasting Faust's desire to shed his mortal body to become pure spirit. The alchemical idea that the soul is not imprisoned in the body, but instead may find its brightest state as it passes through the material plane, is central to the character. William Makepeace Thackeray wrote under the pen name of Homunculus. Contemporary literature The homunculus legend, Frankenstein and Faust have continued to influence works in the twentieth and twenty-first century. The theme has been used not only in fantasy literature, but also to illuminate social topics. For instance, the British children's writers Mary Norton and Rumer Godden used homunculus motifs in their work, expressing various post-war anxieties about refugees, persecution of minorities in war, and the adaptation of these minorities to a "big" world. W. Somerset Maugham's 1908 novel The Magician utilises the concept of the homunculus as an important plot element. David H. Keller’s short story "A Twentieth-Century Homunculus" (1930) describes the creation of homunculi on an industrial scale by a pair of misogynists. Likewise, Sven Delblanc’s The Homunculus: A Magic Tale (1965) addresses alleged misogyny and the Cold War industrial-military complexes of the Soviet Union and NATO. In German children's author Cornelia Funke's book, Dragon Rider, the protagonists meet and are aided by a homunculus created by an alchemist. The homunculus, and alchemy broadly, is seen as more of a magical phenomenon in the story, however, rather than necessarily having a symbolic meaning. Other media Homunculi appear in fantasy based television, film, and games in a manner consistent with literature. Examples can be found in numerous mediums, such as the podcast Hello From The Magic Tavern, the films Homunculus (1916), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973), the made-for-television movie Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973) and its (2011) theatrical remake, Being John Malkovich (1999), Guillermo del Toro's The Devil's Backbone (2001), Fullmetal Alchemist (2001), Shane Acker's 9 (2009), Philipp Humm's The Last Faust (2019), television shows (such as Bloodfeast and American Dad), fantasy role-playing games (such as Dungeons &