The story of Victor Frankenstein's monstrous creation and the havoc it caused has enthralled generations of readers and inspired countless writers of horror and suspense. With the author's own 1831 introduction.
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.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
Promises kept:
Like Poe, strong roots in its Gothic horror era make this story too wordy to be read as a contemporary classic (contradiction in terms, I suppose), but the basic storyline does stand up over time. A basic story, by the way, which no movie version has yet successfully captured, not even Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. That overwrought hyper-surrealistic version by Kenneth Brannagh captures the framework of the book in neat prologue/epilogue bookends, and Robert De Niro captures the menace and humanity of... more info
great story:
i read this book right after dracula and well, it's definitely a good read and an edge of your seat thriller. it has stood the test of time in terms of it's theme and lesson.
I feel sorry...:
for the people who hated this book and gave it poor reviews. Really missed out on what may be the greatest novel of all time. For me it's hard to put down. And the themes are deep and everlasting ones that humans will forever struggle with. Life and death, God vs science, good and evil, spiritual themes, and social ones also, all wrapped up in a GREAT story. Oh well, you can't expect everyone to get it and resonate with it. One thing about this Rieger version: it says it "reproduces for the first time... more info
Choose the 1818 version:
Most editions of Mary Shelley's landmark book available today follow the heavily revised 1831 version. The impulse behind this trend is an honorable one (to present what is seemingly an author's "final revision"),but the 1818 version is preferable for many reasons. Looking back on her creation in later life, Shelley felt obliged to alter the book's focus in significant ways, adding what critic Marilyn Butler accurately describes as "long passages in which her main narrator, [Victor] Frankenstein, expresses... more info
