Frankenstein Paperback - 2010

Victor Frankenstein begins to recount his tale of horror and regret through Mary Shelley’s gothic novel, Frankenstein (The Modern Prometheus). As a young and self-righteous scientist fascinated with the concept of creation, he embarks on an experiment to create what no man has before, life. Spending nights sewing body parts of cadavers and sparking lines with electricity, he is quickly horrified as the monster he has given life to opens its eyes. As he flees and comes to learn of the gruesome deaths befalling those in his personal life. This harrowing tale of morbid curiosity and psychological torment brings into question what it truly means to be alive.

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin wrote the first draft of her groundbreaking novel in 1816, while on a trip to Lake Geneva with her soon-to-be husband, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and poet Lord Byron. They were stuck indoors during famously known as the Year Without a Summer.

A small London publishing house, Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones, first printed Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus in a limited series of just 500 copies on January 1, 1818. By then, Mary was just 20 years old. The first edition was published anonymously in 1818, with a preface by Percy B. Shelley and a dedication to Mary’s father, philosopher William Godwin. Mary Shelley didn’t publicly claim her novel until years later, and her name appears in the second edition, published in 1823. First edition original pasteboards were in blueish gray.

First editions are very scarce and exceptionally rare on the market. In 2021 one of the first 500 copies of the novel was sold at auction for $1.17 million. It was the first Frankenstein first edition copy to be auctioned since 1985.