Frankenstein

In the summer of 1816 a group of friends gathered in a lakeside house in Switzerland. Confined indoors by the inclement weather, they fell to writing ghost stories for their entertainment. The youngest member of the group, an 18-year-old girl, contributed the astonishing tale of Victor Frankenstein, a student of natural philosophy, who galvanises into life a creature out of the bones collected from charnel houses – a hideous monster of superhuman strength and size. Possessed of human needs and emotions and educated through books, the creature craves acceptance in society and a female companion of its own, and the failure of its creator to comply with its demands leads to a chaotic and terrifying denouement. Described in one of its earliest reviews as ‘a novel which excites new reflections and untried sources of emotion’, it is also thought by many to be the very first science fiction novel.
Mary Shelley’s intention was to create ‘a story to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart’, and Harry Brockway’s startling black and white illustrations, filled with menace, are the perfect accompaniment to this nightmarish tale. Presented in its striking new binding as part of the Folio Collectables – a slash of galvanising lightning pierces the spine while the tragic creature lurks behind the title – Frankenstein remains a gothic classic.