Frankenstein

By Mary Shelley

Science meets horror in a new edition of a classic, featuring illustrations by Amanda Shaffer and an introduction by bestselling author Melissa Marr.
One dreary summer on the shores of Lake Geneva, amid discussions of galvanism and the occult and fireside readings from a collection of German ghost stories, Lord Byron proposed a game. Each of his guests--eighteen-year-old Mary Godwin and her future husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, among them--would try their hand at writing a tale of the supernatural. Unable at first to think of a plot, Mary was visited one sleepless night by the terrible vision of a corpse, a "hideous phantasm of a man," lurching to life with the application of some unknown, powerful force. The man responsible, a "pale student of unhallowed arts," fled in horror from his creation, leaving it to return to the dead matter from which it had been born. But the monster did not die. It followed the man to his bedside, where it stood watching him with "yellow, watery, but speculative eyes"--eyes of one who thought and felt.

The novel that Mary Shelley would go on to publish, the legend of Victor Frankenstein and his unholy creation, and their obsessive, murderous pursuit of each other from Switzerland to the North Pole, has been the stuff of nightmares for nearly two centuries. A masterpiece of Romantic literature, it is also one of the most enduring horror stories ever written, dramatized by Shaffer's full-page original illustrations that bring the monster's tale to dramatic life. New York Times-bestselling author Marr places Mary Shelley in the pantheon of female trailblazers, among such notables as Greta Thunberg and Taylor Swift, citing Shelley as the first woman writer of science fiction; a girl, underestimated, providing one of the most recognizable stories of all time.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0FLTKNHZT
• ISBN13: 9798337202365
• Release Date: October 2025
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
• Length: 268 Pages
• Weight: 0.62 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

“Cursed, cursed creator!” - the creature echoes

Victor grew up reading the works of Paracelsus, Agrippa, and Albertus Magnus, the alchemists of the time. Toss in a little natural philosophy (sciences) and you have the making of a monster. Or at least a being that, after being spurned for looking ugly, becomes ugly. So, for revenge, the creature decides that unless Victor makes another (female this time) creature, Victor will also suffer the loss of friends and relatives. What is Victor to do? Bow to the wishes and needs of his creation? Or challenge it to “the death”? What would you do? Although the concept of the monster is good, and the conflicts of the story are well thought out, Shelly suffers from the writing style of the time. Many people do not finish the book as the language is stilted and verbose, for example, when was the last time you said, "Little did I then expect the calamity that was in a few moments to overwhelm me and extinguish in horror and despair all fear of ignominy of death." Much of the book seems like filler for a travel log. More time is spent describing the surroundings of Europe than the reason for traveling or just traveling. Many writers use traveling to reflect time passing or the character growing in stature or knowledge. In this story, they just travel a lot. This book is worth plodding through for moviegoers. The record needs to be set straight. The first shock is that the creator is named Victor Frankenstein; the creature is referred to as a "monster", not Frankenstein. It is Victor who is backward, which enables him to do the impossible by not knowing any better. The monster is well-read in "Sorrows of a Young Werther," "Paradise Lost," and Plutarch's "Lives." The debate (mixed with a few murders) rages on as to whether the monster was doing evil because of his nature or because he was spurned.