Frankenstein: Penguin Clothbound Classics | Mary Shelley & Maurice Hindle

Frankenstein: Penguin Clothbound Classics

Extended Synopsis

Mary Shelley's haunting adventure about ambition and modernity run amok is presented in a stunning clothbound edition designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith. Obsessed with creating life itself, Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life by electricity. However, his botched creature, rejected by his creator and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy his maker and everything he holds dear. Begun when Shelley was just nineteen years old, this chilling gothic tale has become the world's most famous work of horror fiction and remains a devastating exploration of the limits of human creativity. This edition also features "A Fragment" by Lord Byron and "The Vampyre: A Tale" by John Polidori, along with an illuminating introduction and notes by scholar Maurice Hindle.

Target Audience & Reader Targeting

Ideal for students of classic literature, gothic horror enthusiasts, and collectors of beautifully designed hardcover editions. Essential reading for those exploring historical themes of scientific ethics, dangerous ambition, and the moral consequences of unrestrained creation.

Author Biography

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851) was an English novelist and the daughter of celebrated liberal thinkers William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Raised in a freethinking academic environment, she eloped with the brilliant poet Percy Bysshe Shelley at the age of sixteen. Enduring a life marked by personal tragedy, she conceived of her magnum opus, Frankenstein, at the age of nineteen during a ghost story contest proposed by Lord Byron. The novel has endured for centuries as a profound exploration of the tension between the human quest for knowledge and the thirst for good.

Accolades & Awards

• Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read.
• Universally recognized as a foundational text of science fiction and modern horror literature, presented here in an award-winning Penguin Clothbound Classics design.

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