Other editions of book Frankenstein - Original 1818 Uncensored Version

This is the original text of Frankenstein as published in 1818. A much tighter, swifter text than the heavily revised 1831 edition, edited by Shelley, in part, to make the story more conservative.We monks poo-poo conservatism.This edition includes the essay "Mother Frankenstein" by Brother Jonathan, O. S. B., and has been reformatted and streamlined for a better reading experience.

FRANKENSTEIN is widely regarded as a landmark work of romantic and gothic literature.“Mary Shelley’s first novel has been hailed as a masterpiece.” (The Guardian: The 100 Best Novels).“The book blew me away. Here is a creator, Victor Frankenstein, scared of his own creation and unable to take responsibility for it.” (The Independent: Book of a Lifetime)This illustrated edition of Mary Shelley’s classic novel includes:- the preface by Percy Bysshe Shelley- the introduction by Mary Shelley- the complete text from the 1831 edition- an illustrated history of the story’s creation - the cover design features the original frontispiece from the 1831 edition (by Theodor von Holst)READERS’ REVIEWS“The work impresses us with a high idea of the author’s original genius and happy power of expression.” – Walter Scott“Not what I expected. It was better.”“Having only seen the films, I never realised how touching and extraordinarily sad this story really is.”“A gem. One of my all-time favourite stories.”“This book was so hard to put down. Kept me gripped.”“An excellent novel. Filled with suspense and tension.”THE STORY BEHIND THE STORYThe writing of Frankenstein was influenced by two volcanic eruptions, one in Indonesia and one in the author’s private life.When she was nearly 17 years old, Mary Godwin fell in love with one of her father’s political followers, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was nearly 22 years old and already married.Despite the disapproval of her father – the political philosopher William Godwin – Mary and Percy eloped to France. In the summer of 1816 Mary and Percy visited Lord Byron at the Villa Diodati near Lake Geneva.They had planned numerous outdoor activities but the days were cold and dreary. Unknown to them, a volcano in Indonesia, Mount Tambora, had erupted with drastic effects on the global climate. The year 1816 was known as the “Year Without a Summer”. “It proved a wet, ungenial summer,” wrote Mary, “and incessant rain often confined us for days to the house.”Mary and her group of friends amused themselves by reading ghost stories in a book called Fantasmagoriana.Lord Byron suggested that they should “each write a ghost story”. At first Mary was embarrassed that she couldn’t think of anything to write. Then one night Mary went to bed after midnight but was unable to sleep. During this “waking dream” she devised the plot of Frankenstein.Mary later described that summer in Switzerland as the moment “when I first stepped out from childhood into life”.She conceived ‘Frankenstein’ as a short story but, encouraged by Percy Shelley, expanded it into a novel.Mary’s novel, though not her relationship with Percy Shelley, earned her father’s approval. He later wrote to her: “[Frankenstein] is the most wonderful work to have been written at twenty years of age that I have ever heard of. You are now five and twenty. And, most fortunately, you have pursued a course of reading, and cultivated your mind in a manner the most admirably adapted to make you a great and successful author.”Percy drowned in 1822, less than a month before his 30th birthday, when his sailing boat sank during a storm on the Gulf of Spezia. In 1826 Mary received a marriage proposal from an American actor, John Howard Payne, but she refused him, saying that after being married to one genius, she could only marry another.

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel written by the English author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley that tells the story of a young science student Victor Frankenstein, who creates a grotesque but sentient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18, and the first edition of the novel was published anonymously in London in 1818, when she was 20. Shelley's name first appeared on the second edition, published in France in 1823.Shelley traveled through Europe in 1814, journeying along the River Rhine in Germany with a stop in Gernsheim which is just 17 km (10 mi) away from Frankenstein Castle, where, two centuries before, an alchemist was engaged in experiments. Later, she traveled in the region of Geneva (Switzerland)—where much of the story takes place—and the topic of galvanism and other similar occult ideas were themes of conversation among her companions, particularly her lover and future husband, Percy Shelley. Mary, Percy, Lord Byron and John Polidori decided to have a competition to see who could write the best horror story. After thinking for days, Shelley dreamt about a scientist who created life and was horrified by what he had made; her dream later evolved into the novel's story.Frankenstein is infused with elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement, and is also considered to be one of the earliest examples of science fiction. Brian Aldiss has argued that it should be considered the first true science fiction story because, in contrast to previous stories with fantastical elements resembling those of later science fiction, the central character "makes a deliberate decision" and "turns to modern experiments in the laboratory" to achieve fantastic results. It has had a considerable influence in literature and popular culture and spawned a complete genre of horror stories, films and plays.Since the novel's publication, the name "Frankenstein" has often been used to refer to the monster itself, as it is in the stage adaptation by Peggy Webling. This usage is sometimes considered erroneous, but usage commentators regard it as well-established and acceptable. In the novel, the monster is identified by words such as "wretch", "creature", "monster", "demon", and "it". Speaking to Victor Frankenstein, the wretch refers to himself as "the Adam of your labours", and elsewhere as someone who "would have" been "your Adam", but is instead "your fallen angel."

200 years after it was first published, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has stood the test of time as a gothic masterpiece—a classic work of humanity and horror that blurs the line between man and monster...The story of Victor Frankenstein and the monstrous creature he created has held readers spellbound ever since it was published two centuries ago. On the surface, it is a novel of tense and steadily mounting horror; but on a more profound level, it offers searching illumination of the human condition in its portrayal of a scientist who oversteps the bounds of conscience, and of a monster brought to life in an alien world, ever more desperately attempting to escape the torture of his solitude. A novel of hallucinatory intensity, Frankenstein represents one of the most striking flowerings of the Romantic imagination. With an Introduction by Douglas Clegg And an Afterword by Harold Bloom

Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American ReadA stunning new clothbound edition of Mary Shelley's infamous work of horror fiction, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. These delectable and collectible Penguin editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design Obsessed by creating life itself, Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life by electricity. But his botched creature, rejected by Frankenstein and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy his maker and all that he holds dear. This chilling gothic tale, begun when Mary Shelley was just nineteen years old, would become the world's most famous work of horror fiction, and remains a devastating exploration of the limits of human creativity. This edition also includes 'A Fragment' by Lord Byron and 'The Vampyre: A Tale' by John Polidori, as well as an introduction and notes Mary Shelley (1797-1851), the daughter of pioneering thinkers Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, eloped with the poet Percy Shelley at the age of sixteen. Three years later, during a wet summer on Lake Geneva, Shelley famously wrote her masterpiece, Frankenstein. The years of her marriage were blighted by the deaths of three of her four children, and further tragedy followed in 1822, when Percy Shelley drowned in Italy. Following his death, Mary Shelley returned to England and continued to travel and write until her own death at the age of fifty-three.

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley (1797–1851) that tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a hideous sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18, and the first edition was published anonymously in London on 1 January 1818, when she was 20. Her name first appeared in the second edition published in Paris in 1821.

Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American ReadAt the age of eighteen, Mary Shelley, while staying in the Swiss Alps with her lover Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and others, conceived the tale of Dr. Victor Frankenstein and the monster he brings to life. The resulting book, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, is a dark parable warning against the risks of scientific and creative endeavor, the corrupting influence of technology and progress, and the dangers of knowledge without understanding. Frankenstein was an instant bestseller on publication in 1818 and has long been regarded as a masterpiece of suspense, a classic of nineteenth-century Romanticism and Gothic horror, and the prototype of the science fiction novel. Though it has spawned countless imitations and adaptations, it remains the most powerful story of its kind.

Designed to appeal to the book lover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautifully bound pocket-sized gift editions of much loved classic titles. Bound in real cloth, printed on high quality paper, and featuring ribbon markers and gilt edges, Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure. Frankenstein is the most famous novel by Mary Shelley: a dark Faustian parable of science misused that was an immediate success on its publication in 1818. Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant but wayward scientist, builds a human from dead flesh and then, horrified at what he has done, abandons his creation. The creature, an outcast because of his appearance, learns language and becomes civilized, but when rejected by society seeks revenge on his creator. So begins a cycle of destruction in which Frankenstein and his 'monster' lose all vestiges of their humanity in monomaniacal hatred.With an Afterword by David Pinching.

Here is the classic novel of supreme horror that has held readers spellbound since its publication in 1816. This new edition will also feature an examination of the films inspired by Shelley's groundbreaking work, plus a fascinating look into genetic engineering and the modern implications of this immortal tale. @NotoriousDOC Just did a bit-torrent-style grave robbery. My new ‘man’ will be an artful collage. Also, good conversation starter. It’s alive! I’d better beat it over the head repeatedly with a fire extinguisher. So sometimes you build something, and it gets away. They’re gonna can me at the university if they find out about this. From Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less

Originally written as a response to a challenge from Lord Byron‚ Frankenstein still haunts our minds with images of the dead brought back to hideous life. Mary Shelley’s nineteenth-century masterpiece begins with a fateful rescue in the Arctic and slowly evolves into a gripping story of horror—a contest of wills between Victor Frankenstein and the monster he creates. Wandering through Europe‚ the confused creature searches for a father figure in the tortured scientist who stitched him together with body parts stolen from the grave. Themes of revenge‚ the philosophical limits of science‚ and forbidden knowledge are deeply explored in the greatest Gothic novel ever written. This Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Edition includes a glossary and reader’s notes to help the modern reader contend with Shelley’s complex vocabulary and references.