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A monster assembled by a scientist from parts of dead bodies develops a mind of his own as he learns to loathe himself and hate his creator. ... Read more

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The book has no illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from the publisher's website (GeneralBooksClub.com). You can also preview excerpts of the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Publisher: London, H. Colburn and R. Bentley; Publication date: 1830; Subjects: Women and literature; Women and literature/ England/ History/ 19th century; Women and literature - England - History - 19th century; Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft - Criticism and interpretation; Fiction / Horror; Religion / General; Religion / Christian Theology / General; Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; Literary Criticism / Women Authors; Religion / Christian Theology / General; Religion / Theology; ... Read more

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Mark Twain once famously said "there was but one solitary thing about the past worth remembering, and that was the fact that it is past and can't be restored."  Well, over recent years, The British Library, working with Microsoft has embarked on an ambitious programme to digitise its collection of 19th century books.

There are now 65,000  titles available  (that's an incredible 25 million pages) of material ranging from works by famous names such as  Dickens, Trollope and Hardy as well as many forgotten literary gems , all of which can now be printed on demand and purchased right here on Amazon.

Further information on The British Library and its digitisation programme can be found on The British Library website. ... Read more

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The book has no illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from the publisher's website (GeneralBooksClub.com). You can also preview excerpts of the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Volume: 2; Original Publisher: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley; Publication date: 1830; Subjects: Historical fiction, English; Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Historical; Fiction / Literary; Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; Science / Mechanics / Dynamics / General; Technology ... Read more

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The novel presents man's search and quest for the ultimate power and godhood. It is a narrative of man's interference into nature and the consequent destruction. It also delves into human psychology that rejects everything ugly. Written in the times of Industrial Revolution, the work also comments on the conditions of society and people.

To find more titles in your format, Search in Books using EasyRead and the size of the font that makes reading easier and more enjoyable for you.

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Enmarcada en la tradicion gotica y publicada en 1818, cuando la autora tenia solo 21 anos, esta novela aborda temas de gran complejidad como la creacion y destruccion de la vida, la etica del cientifico, y la imprudencia del hombre que desafia a Dios. El subtitulo alude a la actitud del protagonista que intenta rivalizar con la divinidad en el acto mismo de robar el fuego sagrado de la vida. Se considera que esta obra es el primer texto de ciencia ficcion de la historia. ... Read more

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The book has no illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from the publisher's website (GeneralBooksClub.com). You can also preview excerpts of the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Volume: 2; Original Publisher: G. and W. B. Whittaker; Publication date: 1823; Subjects: Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Historical; Fiction / Literary; History / Medieval; Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; ... Read more

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As the result of Victor Frankenstein's creation of a monster out of the remains of human corpses, a series of horrifying events occur.It is interesting to discover that the "monster" of the original book, unlike Mr. Karloff's cinematic portrayal, was a fairly erudite fellow!Five 90-minute cassettes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

About This Edition
This review is about the Heritage Press edition of Frankenstein, illustrated by Everett Henry.

The first version of this book with the Henry illustrations was published in 1934, in a run of 1500 copies. Now rather pricey, it was and remains one of the Limited Editions Club's most desirable books.

At some point, but at least by 1962, Heritage press decided to repackage the book. It is lavender. A pretty, pastel lavender on linen-finished cloth interwoven with white. Decorative pigment leaf elements designed by Henry appear on the cover and spine in an odd, saturated violet (including a creepy hand, and a building.)

Responding to color is a personal thing. At first, I found it bizarre that this great gothic tale would be lavender. Now I wouldn't want it any other way.

In a midnight blue, lightly-textured slipcase. 257 pp with over 5 full page color illustrations, illustrations at the chapter headings, and black and white incidental illustrations scattered through the text.

Introduction by Edmund Pearson.

Gothic at its best
Mary Shelley was the daughter of the famous feminist and author, Mary Wollstonecraft, who is best known for her work The Vindication of the Rights of Women.In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a young university student, Victor Frankenstein, obsesses with wanting to know the secret to life.He studies chemistry and natural philosophy with the goal of being able to create a human out of spare body parts.After months of constant work in his laboratory, Frankenstein attains his goal and brings his creation to life.Frankenstein is immediately overwrought by fear and remorse at the sight of his creation, a "monster."The next morning, he decides to destroy his creation but finds that the monster has escaped.The monster, unlike other humans, has no social preparation or education; thus, it is unequipped to take care of itself either physically or emotionally.The monster lives in the forest like an animal without knowledge of "self" or understanding of its surroundings.The monster happens upon a hut inhabited by a poor family and is able to find shelter in a shed adjacent to the hut.For several months, the monster starts to gain knowledge of human life by observing the daily life of the hut's inhabitants through a crack in the wall.The monster's education of language and letters begins when he listens to one of them learning the French language.During this period, the monster also learns of human society and comes to the realization that he is grotesque and alone in the world.Armed with his newfound ability to read, he reads three books that he found in a leather satchel in the woods.Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther, Milton's Paradise Lost, and a volume of Plutarch's Lives.The monster, not knowing any better, read these books thinking them to be facts about human history.From Plutarch's works, he learns of humankind's virtues.However, it is Paradise Lost that has a most interesting effect on the monster's understanding of self.The monster at first identifies with Adam, "I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence."The monster, armed only with his limited education, thought that he would introduce himself to the cottagers and depend on their virtue and benevolence; traits he believed from his readings that all humans possessed.However, soon after his first encounter with the cottagers, he is beaten and chased off because his ugliness frightens people.The monster is overwrought by a feeling of perplexity by this reaction, since he thought he would gain their trust and love, which he observed them generously give to each other on so many occasions.He receives further confirmation of how his ugliness repels people when, sometime later, he saves a young girl from drowning and the girl's father shoots at him because he is frightful to look at.The monster quickly realizes that the books really lied to him.He found no benevolence or virtue among humans, even from his creator.At every turn in his life, humans are judging him solely based on his looks.The monster soon realizes that it is not Adam, the perfect being enjoying the world, which he is most alike.Instead, he comes to realize that he most represents Satan.The monster is jealous of the happiness he sees humans enjoy that he has never attained for himself.The monster tells Frankenstein that he found his lab journal in his coat pocket and read it with increasing hate and despair as he came to understand what Frankenstein's intent was in creating him.The monster curses Frankenstein for making a creature so hideous that even his creator turned from him in disgust.

Shelley's intent here is plain to see."The fate of the monster suggests that proficiency in `the art of language' as he calls it, may not ensure one's position as a member of the `human kingdom."In a sense, she is showing that both her parents were mistaken when they advocated greater education reform for people.They thought education would make people better, which in turn would improve society for all.Mary Shelley's Frankenstein contradicts this belief.

Starting with the full title of Mary Shelley's book, Frankenstein: or The Modern Prometheus one can instantly see that mythology was integral to her book.Lord Byron, poet and friend of the Shelley's was writing a poem entitled Prometheus, and Mary was reading the Prometheus legend in Aeschylus' works when she had a dream, which was the impetus for her book.The Greek god Prometheus, is known for two important tasks that he performed, he created man from clay, and he stole fire from the gods and gave it to man.The stealing of fire really angered Zeus because the giving of fire began an era of enlightenment for humankind.Zeus punished Prometheus by having him carried to a mountain, where an eagle would pick at his liver; it would grow back each day and the eagle would eat it again.

The presence of fire and light in this gothic story helps to point to the similarities to Prometheus and Victor Frankenstein, the creator of the monster, in Shelley's book.The book uses light as a symbol of discovery, knowledge, and enlightenment.The natural world is full of hidden passages, and dark unknown scientific secrets; Victor's goal as a scientist is to grasp towards the light.Light is a by-product of fire that the monster learned quickly when he is living on his own.The monster experienced fires' duality when he first encountered it in an unattended fire in the woods.He is mesmerized by the fact that fire produces light in the darkness in the woods, but is shocked at the sensation of pain it gives him when he touches it.Victor is defiant of god in the same way that Prometheus was defiant of Zeus.Victor steals the secret of life from god and creates a human out of spare body parts.He does this out of an altruistic wish to spare humankind from the pain and suffering of death.Thus, Victor Frankenstein embodies both aspects of the Promethean myth creation and fire.Victor in a sense has the same experience with the fire of enlightenment similar to his monster; he is "burned" by the fire of enlightenment.Victor also suffers from the classic Greek tragic condition of hubris for his transgression against god and nature.

The book also adopts two other great mythic legends.One is Adam from the Bible.Victor Frankenstein bears striking resemblance to Adam and his fall from grace for eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.The other is Satan, a mythic figure that Shelley admired from her readings in Milton's book Paradise Lost.In an interesting juxtaposition of booth myths, she expands on the motif of the fall from grace in her book when she portrays the monster comparing himself to Adam; after he read, Milton's book Paradise Lost.The monster tells Victor, that he at first identifies with Adam God's first creation."I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence."However, after several incidents of mistreatment that he suffered from the humans he encountered in his travels; the monster soon realized that it is not Adam, the perfect being enjoying the world, which he was most alike.Instead, he came to realize that he most represented Satan.The monster's feelings of hatred and despair stem from the fact that humans found him grotesque to look at and would not accept him as a member of human society.The monster cursed Victor for making a creature so hideous that even his creator turned from him in disgust.Thus, it is obvious for all to see that Shelley's Frankenstein is replete with mythological references and they are central to the plot.

This was required reading for a graduate course in the Humanities.Recommended reading for anyone interested in history, psychology, philosophy, and literature.


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This edition, the third in our Lives of the Great Romantics series, sheds light on contemporary perceptions of the most biographically and intellectually compelling literary family of the Romantic period.The collected writings reveal not only the personalities of the subjects, but also the motives and agendas of the individual biographers. In volume 1, the memoirs depict the character of the philosopher and novelist William Godwin as inseparable from the character of his work. In volume 2, a fascinating picture of the vicissitudes of Wollstonecraft's reputation throughout the nineteenth century is displayed. Shortly after her death she is vilified and abused by commentators, but gradually a new 'sanitised' image emerges, her `coarseness' is overlooked, and the emphasis shifts to her gentleness and sensitivity, combined with strength of mind.Both volumes 1 and 2 include extracts from Mary Shelley's previously unpublished 'Life of William Godwin' in the Abinger Collection, transcribed specially for this edition.Due to Sir Timothy's prohibition that Mary Shelley bring the Shelley name to public attention, and because the growing conservatism of the era often caused Mary Shelley to be shunned by 'good society', little was written of her during her life time.Many of the later passages in this collection, however, reveal truths about Mary Shelley's character and work much known but never previously written about. ... Read more

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This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

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In Two Volumes. This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature. ... Read more