Frankenstein; Or, the Modern Prometheus (The 1818 Text); together with Lord Byron's A Fragment; together with The Vampyre; A Tale

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft; Edited, with variant readings, an introduction and notes, by James Rieger; Lord Byron; John William Polidori

ISBN 10: 0672514575 / ISBN 13: 9780672514579

Published by The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.A., 1974

About this Item

Solid hardcover bound in mildly stained and soiled full purple cloth with unmarked interior and text. The dust jacket remains unclipped ($7.50) with soiling to the panels and mild wear along the edges. This is the definitive scholarly text of Mary Shelley's masterpiece which has proven to be quite influential. Rieger makes a persuasive case that the 1818 text is the one to be read: it's better, for one, and has less interference from the revisionary hand of Percy. This edition includes the full 1818 text of Frankenstein, along with the complete text of Mary Shelley's Introduction to the Third Edition (1831), as well as an appendix collating the 1818 and 1831 texts; also included are Lord Byron's "Fragment" from the famous ghost-story contest; and the complete text of John William Polidori's The Vampyre; A Tale. Increasingly uncommon in this condition, and now out of print in hardcover. xlv, 287pp.

Seller Inventory # 009870

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Frankenstein; Or, the Modern Prometheus (The 1818 Text); together with Lord Byron's A Fragment; together with The Vampyre; A Tale
• Publisher: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.A.
• Publication Date: 1974
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0672514575
• ISBN 13: 9780672514579
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition Thus
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

Book by Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft

Review

Frankenstein, loved by many decades of readers and praised by such eminent literary critics as Harold Bloom, seems hardly to need a recommendation. If you haven't read it recently, though, you may not remember the sweeping force of the prose, the grotesque, surreal imagery, and the multilayered doppelgänger themes of Mary Shelley's masterpiece. As fantasy writer Jane Yolen writes of this (the reviewer's favorite) edition, "The strong black and whites of the main text [illustrations] are dark and brooding, with unremitting shadows and stark contrasts. But the central conversation with the monster--who owes nothing to the overused movie image ... but is rather the novel's charnel-house composite--is where [Barry] Moser's illustrations show their greatest power ... The viewer can all but smell the powerful stench of the monster's breath as its words spill out across the page. Strong book-making for one of the world's strongest and most remarkable books." Includes an illuminating afterword by Joyce Carol Oates.