> Skip to content
[]
  • Published: 28 May 2018
  • ISBN: 9780143131847
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $23.00

Frankenstein

The 1818 Text




For the bicentennial of its first publication, Mary Shelley's original 1818 text, introduced by National Book Critics Circle award-winner Charlotte Gordon.

Mary Shelley’s classic novel, presented in its original 1818 text, with an introduction from National Book Critics Circle award-winner Charlotte Gordon
 
Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read
 
The original 1818 text of Frankenstein preserves the hard-hitting and politically-charged aspects of Shelley’s original writing, as well as her unflinching wit and strong female voice. This edition also emphasizes Shelley’s relationship with her mother—trailblazing feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, who penned A Vindication of the Rights of Woman—and demonstrates her commitment to carrying forward her mother’s ideals, placing her in the context of a feminist legacy rather than the sole female in the company of male poets, including Percy Shelley and Lord Byron.
 
This edition includes a new introduction and suggestions for further reading by National Book Critics Circle award-winner and Shelley expert Charlotte Gordon, literary excerpts and reviews selected by Gordon, and a chronology and essay by preeminent Shelley scholar Charles E. Robinson.
 
Penguin Classics is the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, representing a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

  • Published: 28 May 2018
  • ISBN: 9780143131847
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $23.00

About the author

Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley (1797-1851), the daughter of pioneering thinkers Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, eloped with the poet Percy Shelley at the age of sixteen. Three years later, during a wet summer on Lake Geneva, Shelley famously wrote her masterpiece, Frankenstein. The years of her marriage were blighted by the deaths of three of her four children, and further tragedy followed in 1822, when Percy Shelley drowned in Italy. Following his death, Mary Shelley returned to England and continued to travel and write until her own death at the age of fifty-three.

Also by Mary Shelley

See all