(Original, Unabridged Classic, Premium Hardbound Collector's Edition, Ideal for Gifting)
Mary Shelley
"Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change."
Victor Frankenstein assembles a being from stolen parts and breathes life into it — then flees in horror from what he has made. The creature, eloquent and sensitive, seeks only love and recognition. Rejected by its creator and by every human it encounters, it turns to vengeance. But Mary Shelley makes certain the reader understands who bears responsibility: the monster is not innate, but produced by abandonment.
Written at eighteen and published in 1818, Frankenstein is one of the most extraordinary literary debuts in history, and by wide consensus the novel that invented science fiction. Readers who come to it expecting the Hollywood version are consistently surprised by how much more dramatic, emotional, and philosophically rich the original is. Its central question — what do we owe to the beings we bring into existence? — has never been more pertinent.
This premium hardbound collector's edition with sprayed edges presents Shelley's original, unabridged text — a foundational volume for any literary library.
