The Modern Prometheus
Illustrated by Angela Barrett
Introduced by Richard Holmes
Relish the thrilling horror of Frankenstein in Folio’s stunning new edition. Mary Shelley's darkly disturbing tale is illustrated by Angela Barrett and newly introduced by Richard Holmes.
There can be few books as well-known as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Adapted for stage, film and radio over 100 times, this chilling gothic tale is thought by some to be the very first science-fiction novel. Written in 1816, when Shelley was just 18, her story of a hideous monster of superhuman strength is indebted to contemporary scientific experiments and philosophical debates and is as thought-provoking as it is thrilling.
Artist Angela Barrett has contributed eight ominously unsettling illustrations for our edition. Created in series with her remarkable illustrations for Dracula, each one is full of foreboding and set within an elaborate hand-drawn black-and-white border. Nine vignettes represent further aspects of the story, and Barrett’s work is completed with a striking binding design. Award-winning biographer Richard Holmes has contributed an exclusive introduction focusing on the scientific influences and cultural repercussions of the novel.
Bound in blocked cloth
Set in Clifford with Operetta as display
232 pages
Frontispiece and 7 full-page colour illustrations with silver and black & white borders, 9 black & white vignettes
Ribbon marker
Coloured tops
Printed slipcase
10˝ x 6¾˝
‘I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.’
In June 1816 four friends gathered at the Villa Diodati beside Lake Geneva in Switzerland, where, confined indoors during the ‘Year without a Summer’, they devised a ghost story competition for their entertainment. Mary Shelley, the youngest participant, contributed the astonishing tale of Victor Frankenstein, a student of natural philosophy who galvanises into life a creature out of bones collected from charnel houses. Possessed of human needs and emotions, and educated through books, the creature craves acceptance in society and demands a female companion. His creator’s defiant refusal to provide one provokes the terrifying denouement. Shelley unquestionably fulfilled her stated intention to create ‘a story to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart’.
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