- Published: 29 October 2018
- ISBN: 9781784874414
- Imprint: Vintage Classics
- Format: Hardback
- Pages: 256
- RRP: $39.99
Frankenstein
A beautiful hardback edition of Mary Shelley's Gothic horror classic, Frankenstein, to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the book's publication
A beautiful new hardback edition of Mary Shelley's Gothic horror classic, Frankenstein, to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the book's first publication
INCLUDES A CULTURAL HISTORY OF FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER
Navigating the Arctic, the captain of a ship rescues a man wandering near death across the ice caps. How the man got there reveals itself a story of ambition, murder and revenge. As a young scientist, Victor Frankenstein pushed moral boundaries in order to cross the final frontier and create life. But his creation is a monster stitched together from grave-plundered body parts who has no place in the world, and his existence can only lead to tragedy.
**One of the BBC’s 100 Novels That Shaped Our World**
- Published: 29 October 2018
- ISBN: 9781784874414
- Imprint: Vintage Classics
- Format: Hardback
- Pages: 256
- RRP: $39.99
Other books in the series
About the author
The childhood of Mary Shelley (1797 – 1851), sounds rather like a dark fairy-tale. Her mother died giving birth to her and she was brought up by a remote father and a step-mother who hated her. Her step-sister was a depressive and later committed suicide and Mary had little in common with her step-brother or her half-brother. As a young girl, she escaped into books and would often read by the side of her mother's tomb.
In 1813 Mary met Percy Bysshe Shelley. He was only twenty-one but was already unhappily married. He was destined to be one of the geniuses of English poetry. The two fell in love and eloped, despite Mary's age. Her father, William Godwin, disowned her, but still she and Shelley were married in 1816. They settled in Italy but tragedy seemed to follow them. Only one of their four children lived very long and then, in 1822, when he was just thirty, Shelley was drowned. Mary lived for another thirty years but she lost the promise that she had shown in the company of her brilliant husband and his friends, such as the poet Lord Byron. The single book that we remember her for belonged to her happy time in Italy.
It was Byron who suggested in 1817, that they each write a horror story. The result in Mary's case, was Frankenstein. As well as being creepier than most other books in the genre, Frankenstein has a far better story-line and is in the end, both moving and tragic. Amazingly, a young girl of twenty gave us the book whose name has become synonymous with horror.
Praise for Frankenstein
A haunting, melancholy work of gothic beauty
Independent
The most famous of all horror stories still packs a punch
Daily Mail
A masterpiece
Phillip Pullman
Frankenstein launched an entire genre of dystopian fiction, and a legacy of horror at the consequences of unbridled experimentation
Daily Telegraph
Shelley's speechifying, lonely, Miltonic monster remains one of the greatest characters in all of literature. The book may also be the greatest meditation on birth I have ever read.
Siri Hustvedt, The Week