The First Illustrated Edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Mary W[ollstonecraft] Shelley. FRANKENSTEIN: OR, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS. REVISED, CORRECTED, AND ILLUSTRATED WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION, BY THE AUTHOR [bound with] THE GHOST-SEER! FROM THE GERMAN OF SCHILLER. London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1831. (2) titles bound in one including the complete Frankenstein and Volume I (of two) of Friedrich Schiller's The Ghost-Seer, as issued. First illustrated edition and third edition overall of Shelley's Frankenstein. No. IX of the first series of Bentley's Standard Novels. Rebound in half calf over marbled paper-covered boards, spine with gilt-decorated and lettered compartments, with endpapers and all edges marbled. With engraved frontispiece and engraved title page with vignette, title page with the number of the volume in the Standard Novels series, and each novel with half-title and title page. Small 8vo; xii, 202, [2], 163, [1]pp. followed by (4) pages of ads. Sadleir 3734a; Summers, p. 330; Wolf pgs. 345-347.

6 5/8 x 4 3/8 in.

From a Private North Carolina Collection

Sadleir notes that Bentley's Standard Novels "form a series of great interest and importance to students of nineteenth-century fiction.... [They are] no mere series of straight reprints. A number of them represent texts individual to the series and often the latest texts approved by their authors; a number more contain some relevant feature not included in any other edition." (p. 95) Frankenstein is an excellent example of this.

Previously published in 1818 and 1823, this is the third edition of Mary Shelley's celebrated Gothic novel, Frankenstein, and the first to be illustrated. It includes both a frontispiece and title page vignette, both by Theodor Von Holst (1810-1844), a British painter who received training from the well-known Romantic artist Henry Fuseli, and engraved by William Chevalier. The frontispiece depicts the creature's awakening, and a quote from the novel below the illustration reads, in part: "I saw the dull, yellow eye of the creature open....I rushed out of the room." Significantly, Bentley's issues of Frankenstein appear to be the only ones to include illustrations of the story for nearly a century.

In addition to Shelley's significant revisions, this edition is also important for the inclusion of her introduction which explains the origin of the story. After moving to Switzerland in 1816 with her husband, the poet Percy Shelley, they became neighbors with Lord Byron. It was he that said "We will each write a ghost story" and Mary Shelley set out "to think of a story.... One which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature, and awaken thrilling horror – one to make the reader dread to look around, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart" (p. viii-ix).

Sturdy boards with some scuffing, wear to extremities, light age cracking to leather on spine, an area of slight cracking at rear joint just starting, and upper board very slightly bowed; leaves trimmed slightly at lower margins with separate Frankenstein title page and first introduction leaf slightly shorter; ownership inscription on first free endpaper; mild toning and scattered foxing (concentrated on preliminaries and endpapers); frontispiece and vignette title page with damp staining along edges, the latter with expected offsetting; occasional small stain, spot of grime, or general handling or age wear; one leaf with 1 1/8-in. tear; overall text pages extremely clean. Very good.

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