Frankenstein
The Modern Prometheus
by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley 1797–1851
The book, and the century it came out of.
Victor Frankenstein assembles a living creature in a candlelit attic, sees what he has made, and runs. Everything that follows — the pursuit across the ice, the demand for a companion, the murders — comes from that flight rather than from the act of creation. Shelley began it at eighteen, in a wet summer on Lake Geneva, and the creature’s own account of his abandonment remains the part readers cannot argue their way out of. The Gilded Library sets the 1831 text among period paintings of Alpine ice, laboratory gloom and solitary wandering; the ornament is built from lightning, glass retorts and thorn. Illustrated with 58 full-page plates — paintings by Pitz, Granet and Schütz among them.
You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.
Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.
It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.
- Series
- The Gilded Library
- Format
- Ebook
- Extent
- about 232 pages
- Reading time
- about 5 hours
- Illustrations
- Full-page plates, credited
- Text
- Complete, unabridged
- Language
- en
- This edition
- 2026
- ISBN
- 9785501006546
58 paintings are bound into this edition
Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.
This book in culture: 35 versions
Most people meet a book like this one on a screen first. Here are 8 of them, the earliest and the most recent among them — and none of them is the book.
The whole afterlife of Frankenstein — screen, stage and beyond →
- 1910 Frankenstein J. Searle Dawley short film
- 1957 The Curse of Frankenstein Terence Fisher
- 1975 Young Frankenstein Mel Brooks
- 1985 The Bride Franc Roddam
- 1995 Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Kenneth Branagh
- 2011 Frankenstein: Day of the Beast Ricardo Islas
- — Frankenstein Kevin Connor miniseries
- — Victor LaValle's Destroyer comic book
A page from this edition
Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.
Both photographed from the finished volume.
Frankenstein, first published 1818, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the The Gilded Library shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.
Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785501006546, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.
Questions readers ask
- Is this the whole of Frankenstein?
- Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
- What exactly did you change?
- The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
- Are the pictures really in the book?
- Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
- How long is it?
- About 232 pages, which is roughly about 5 hours of reading.
- What do I actually get?
- An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
