Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft

Frankenstein (Norton Critical Editions)

Frankenstein: the original 1818 text (Broadview Literary Texts)

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.

Mary Shelley's deceptively simple story of Victor Frankenstein and the creature he brings to life, first published in 1818, is now more widely read—and more widely discussed by scholars—than any other work of the Romantic period. In 1831, Shelley published a revised version of the novel, which smoothed over some of the unresolved themes of the story and toned down much of its dark suggestiveness.

Increasingly critics argue that the original version—the text used by Macdonald and Scherf—is the better of the two. Until Broadview's first edition, almost all modern editions were based on the 1831 text. Subsequently, a number of the larger presses followed suit. The Broadview text is still widely viewed as the best. It includes an appendix that details the changes made for the later version, excerpts from Milton, Erasmus, Darwin and a range of other contemporary documents that shed a variety of lights on the historical context from which this unique masterpiece emerged.

Mary Shelley's novel epitomizes the gothic novel of the 18th-century, and is one of the most translated and published novels in the world. But though Frankenstein has often been placed in the genre of "horror" in modern film and fictional adaptations, it is also a discourse on the "otherness" of femininity, of childhood, of the colonized and the oppressed. Broadview's teaching edition attempts to address these varying themes in Frankenstein, and to aid in the understanding of early feminist and humanist reform movements.

Frankenstein (The Classic Collection) (The Classic Collection)

Dr. Frankenstein learns the secret of imparting life to inanimate matter. To test his theories, he collects bones from the charnel-houses to construct a "human" being, and then gives it life. The creature, endowed with supernatural size and strength, is revolting to look at, and frightens all who see it. Lonely and miserable, it comes to hate its creator. The monster murders Frankenstein's brother and his bride, and flees. The doctor pursues his creation in order to destroy it, but dies himself in the attempt.

The story of Frankenstein was first written as a ghost story to be told as part of a contest between Mary Shelley, her husband, and Lord Byron. This tale of terror has been a world favorite since it was first published in 1818, and has been made into countless movies.

Frankenstein

The Ignatius Critical Editions represent a tradition-oriented alternative to popular textbook series such as the Norton Critical Editions or Oxford World Classics, and are designed to concentrate on traditional readings of the Classics of world literature. Whereas many modern critical editions have succumbed to the fads of modernism and post-modernism, this series will concentrate on tradition-oriented criticism of these great works. Edited by acclaimed literary biographer, Joseph Pearce, the Ignatius Critical Editions will ensure that traditional moral readings of the works are given prominence, instead of the feminist, or deconstructionist readings that often proliferate in other series of 'critical editions'. As such, they represent a genuine extension of consumer-choice, enabling educators, students and lovers of good literature to buy editions of classic literary works without having to 'buy into' the ideologies of secular fundamentalism. The series is particularly aimed at tradition-minded literature professors offering them an alternative for their students. The initial list will have about 15 - 20 titles. The goal is to release three books a season, or six in a year. The first three titles to release in April 2008 are King Lear, Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is one of the most influential and controversial novels of the nineteenth century; it is also one of the most misunderstood and misinterpreted. It has been vivisected critically by latter-day Victor Frankensteins who have transformed the meanings emergent from the novel into monsters of post-modern misconception. Meanwhile Franken-feminists have turned the novel into a monster of misanthropy. Seldom has a work of fiction suffered so scandalously from the slings and arrows of outrageous criticism. This critical edition, containing tradition-oriented essays by literary scholars, refutes the errors and serves as an antidote to the poison that has contaminated the critical understanding of this classic gothic novel.

Classic Starts: Frankenstein (Classic Starts Series)

Mary Shelley’s tragic story of a scientist who created a monster is perhaps even more compelling and meaningful today than when it was written nearly two centuries ago. From the bits and pieces of dead bodies, and the power of electricity, the brilliant Victor Frankenstein fashions a new form of life—only to discover, too late, the irreparable damage he has caused.