For years Victor Frankenstein labors to create a new race of intelligent beings. He spends his nights scrounging human and animal body parts from graveyards, slaughterhouses, and hospital dissection rooms. By day he experiments in his secret laboratory, perfecting the creature whom, he believes, will worship him as a god. When he succeeds, Frankenstein is horrified by the ugly brutishness of the patchwork being he has brought to life. Rather than exult in his accomplishment, he runs from it, retreating to the comfort of long-neglected friends and family. Frankenstein has, indeed, created a monster . . . not by animating dead flesh but by abandoning his creation. Now, the monster is out for revenge.

Frankenstein is the classic gothic horror novel which has thrilled and engrossed readers for two centuries. Written by Mary Shelley, it is a story which she intended would 'curdle the blood and quicken the beatings of the heart.' The tale is a superb blend of science fiction, mystery and thriller. Victor Frankenstein driven by the mad dream of creating his own creature, experiments with alchemy and science to build a monster stitched together from dead remains. Once the creature becomes a living breathing articulate entity, it turns on its maker and the novel darkens into tragedy. The reader is very quickly swept along by the force of the elegant prose, the grotesque, surreal imagery, and the multi-layered themes in the novel. Although first published in 1818, Shelley's masterpiece still maintains a strong grip on the imagination and has been the inspiration for numerous horror movies, television and stage adaptations.

Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus is an 1818 science fiction romance by Mary Shelley. Frankenstein, a young student, animates a soulless monster made out of corpses from churchyards and dissecting rooms by means of galvanism. Longing for sympathy and shunned by everyone, the creature ultimately turns to evil and brings dreadful retribution on the student for usurping God's prerogative...

Tales from a Mistress of the Gothic
Mary Shelley is possibly one of the most renowned women authors of all time. She is, of course, the literary creator of the iconic Frankenstein's monster and that alone has guaranteed it and her immortality rivalled only by Bram Stoker's Dracula in the pantheon of the bizarre. Beyond her most famous literary work, 'Frankenstein, ' she possessed an incredible creative talent, responsible for a dazzling collection of novels, short stories, essays, plays, biographies and travel books. Mary Shelley was an independent, free thinking woman, decades before her time, who strongly adhered the ideals of her father, the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother, the feminist and liberal Mary Wollstonecraft. She notoriously-for her time-became the mistress of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and she subsequently married him upon the suicide of his wife. Those familiar with 'Frankenstein' will not be surprised to find it within this special collection, but those for whom it will be a new experience will discover a superb work of fiction which towers above our perceptions of it from its familiarity through film and television. Fortunately, Mary Shelley did not confine her excursions into the other worldly, weird and Gothic to just this tale of the 'man-made' man. This two volume edition contains two novels and many shorter pieces in testament to Mary Shelley's talent for the literature of the macabre.
In this the first volume the reader will discover the classic novel, 'Frankenstein' together with fourteen shorter pieces including, 'The Mortal Immortal, ' 'Valerius: the Reanimated Roman, ' 'The Mourner' and many others.
Available in soft cover and hard cover with dust jacket. Leonaur hard covers are cloth bound, have taped headers and gold foil embossed spines for collectors.

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. I arrived here yesterday, and my first task is to assure my dear sister of my welfare and increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking. I am already far north of London, and as I walk in the streets of Petersburgh, I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves and fills me with delight. Do you understand this feeling? This breeze, which has travelled from the regions towards which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes. Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent and vivid. I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight. There, Margaret, the sun is forever visible, its broad disk just skirting the horizon and diffusing a perpetual splendour. There - for with your leave, my sister, I will put some trust in preceding navigators - there snow and frost are banished; and, sailing over a calm sea, we may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable globe. Its productions and features may be without example, as the phenomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in those undiscovered solitudes. What may not be expected in a country of eternal light?

Drama / Character: 4 male, 4 female

Scenery: Interior

Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant young scientist, returns to his Swiss chateau to escape a terrible pursuer. No one can shake free the dark secret that terrifies him: not his mother, nor his fiancee, nor his best friend. Even the pleading of a gypsy girl accused of murdering Victor's younger brother falls on deaf ears, for Victor has brought into being a creature made from pieces of the dead. The creature tracks Victor to his sanctuary to demand a bride to share its loneliness. Against his better judgement, Victor agrees and soon the household is invaded by murder, despair and terror!

"Thrills... laughs... true suspense." Arizona Republic.

"In Tim Kelly's thoughtful version of the classic tale, the results are surprisingly thought provoking and highly entertaining." Palos Verdes News

This is the original 1818 text of Frankenstein. In 1831, the more popular edition of Frankenstein appeared. In this later version, the story was heavily revised by Mary Shelley who was under pressure to make the book more conservative. The 1831 edition tends to be the one most widely read now but many scholars prefer the 1818 text, arguing that it preserves the spirit of Shelley's original publication. The 1818 edition also includes a preface by Shelley explaining the origins of Frankenstein.

Brilliant young scientist Victor Frankenstein's drive to create life leads him to animate a creature assembled from the bodies of the dead. Horrified at the result, Frankenstein flees. Alone, it learns of its ghastly nature and dreams of how it might find some kind of happiness. Seeking out Frankenstein, the creature offers a terrible ultimatum, create for it a companion or suffer its merciless revenge. Since its first publication in 1818 Frankenstein has become a literary classic and a celebrated fixture of pop culture. Filmed repeatedly and generating dozens of sequels both in print and on screen, Mary Shelley's novel still stands alone as a source of chilling thrills and macabre atmosphere while continuing to generate fresh insights and interpretations. Frankenstein, the man of science unprepared for what he has created, and his creation, a misbegotten innocent turned to the dark side by rejection and loneliness, are unforgettable characters with ageless appeal. Their conflict, and their strange bond, leads them from Germany to England and finally to a tragic climax far into the frozen North. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Frankenstein is both modern and readable.

This frightening classic tale is now available in an exclusive collector's edition, featuring beautiful cover art from artist Laci Fowler and decorative interior pages, making it ideal for fiction lovers and book collectors alike. Beloved by horror fans across the globe, Frankenstein explores the terror of what happens when humanity plays God. This time-honored classic is now available as an exclusive collector's edition. Whether you're buying it as a gift or for yourself, this remarkable edition features: A beautiful, high-end hardcover featuring Laci Fowler's distinctive hand-painted art Decorative interior pages featuring pull quotes throughout Matching ribbon marker and gold page edges Part of a 4-volume collection including The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Great Gatsby, and The Return of Sherlock Holmes Shattered by grief, the unstable Victor Frankenstein conducts a bizarre experiment, using electricity to shock inanimate matter and create an enormous man-like monster. Terrified by his own actions, Victor abandons his creation to the wilderness. Years later, the intelligent and hideous Creature finds his creator and demands his right to happiness. A tragedy of murderous rage and the fatal consequences of revenge, Mary Shelley's iconic novel has been terrifying readers since the nineteenth century. Exploring the dark themes of birth and creation, loneliness, ambition, and the destructive power of revenge, this unique collector's edition presents Shelley's frightening tale of otherworldly adventures in a giftable new way.

The classic novel brought to life in full color! 'Cursed be the hands that formed you'! True to the original novel, Declan Shalvey's naturally gothic artistic style is a perfect match for this epic tale. "Frankenstein" is such a well known title, yet the films strayed so far beyond the original novel that many people today don't realize how this classic horror tale deals with such timeless subjects as alienation, empathy and understanding beyond appearance. This is another great story, beautifully crafted into a superb graphic novel.

"In this new edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein , David Wootton's Introduction gives the reader both a clear and gripping account of the biographical circumstances that led to the novel's writing and the most striking and original interpretations of its central themes and of the intellectual and cultural influences on them. Offering a new account of the complex history of its composition, and drawing upon his deep knowledge of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scientific debates, Wootton reveals the ways in which the origins of Shelley's novel are inextricably linked to conceptions of the origins of life itself. We have here a transformative reading of one of the world's best-known stories." -Laura Marcus, Goldsmiths' Professor of English Literature and Fellow of New College, University of Oxford

Brilliant young scientist Victor Frankenstein's drive to create life leads him to animate a creature assembled from the bodies of the dead. Horrified at the result, Frankenstein flees. Alone, it learns of its ghastly nature and dreams of how it might find some kind of happiness. Seeking out Frankenstein, the creature offers a terrible ultimatum, create for it a companion or suffer its merciless revenge. Since its first publication in 1818 Frankenstein has become a literary classic and a celebrated fixture of pop culture. Filmed repeatedly and generating dozens of sequels both in print and on screen, Mary Shelley's novel still stands alone as a source of chilling thrills and macabre atmosphere while continuing to generate fresh insights and interpretations. Frankenstein, the man of science unprepared for what he has created, and his creation, a misbegotten innocent turned to the dark side by rejection and loneliness, are unforgettable characters with ageless appeal. Their conflict, and their strange bond, leads them from Germany to England and finally to a tragic climax far into the frozen North. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Frankenstein is both modern and readable.