The original horror story, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a classic that sparked a thousand nightmares and redefined what it means to be human. This new special edition hardcover includes sprayed edges, gorgeous endpapers, and brand-new illustrations of key moments from the book.
Obsessed with unlocking the secrets of life, Victor Frankenstein assembles a being from fragments of the dead and shocks it into existence. But the moment his creature opens its watery eyes, triumph turns to horror. Abandoned and alone in a world that recoils from his appearance, the creature learns what it means to be feared, reviled, and denied love—and his loneliness curdles into vengeance.
Blending Gothic terror with piercing psychological insight, Frankenstein is far more than a tale of a monster. It is a haunting meditation on ambition and responsibility, and asks a question that still resonates today: What do we owe to the lives we create?
First published in 1818, Mary Shelley’s groundbreaking novel endures as one of literature’s most powerful and unsettling myths—a story that continues to electrify the imagination and challenge the conscience.
Mary Shelley (1797–1851), née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, was born in London, the second daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, well known feminist, philosopher, educator, and writer, and William Godwin, famous English philosopher, novelist, and journalist. She was best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, written when she was eighteen and published when she was twenty-one. She was married to the Romantic writer Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Simon Templeman is a British actor who frequently voices vampire characters in video games, most notably Kain from the Legacy of Kain video game series.
Anthony Heald, an Audie Award–winning narrator, has earned Tony nominations and an Obie Award for his theater work; appeared in television’s Law & Order, The X-Files, Miami Vice, and Boston Public; and starred as Dr. Frederick Chilton in the 1991 Oscar-winning film The Silence of the Lambs. He has also won numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards for his narrations.
Stefan Rudnicki first became involved with audiobooks in 1994. Now a Grammy-winning audiobook producer, he has worked on more than five thousand audiobooks as a narrator, writer, producer, or director. He has narrated more than nine hundred audiobooks. A recipient of multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards, he was presented the coveted Audie Award for solo narration in 2005, 2007, and 2014, and was named one of AudioFile’s Golden Voices in 2012.