Frankenstein: or the Modern Prometheus

London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley. 1831.

Third edition published with the first illustration of Dr Frankenstein's monster

Third edition, published as volume IX of Standard Novels series issued with the first part of The Ghost-Seer. 162x100mm. pp. xii, 202; [2], 163 [5]. Frontispiece and illustrated additional title page. Black half calf, marbled paper covered boards, spine lettered and decorated in gilt. Housed in a green cloth covered dropback box. Rubbing to boards and scuffing to head and foot of spine. Corners bumped. Internally very good but with some foxing and slight soiling. The frontispiece and illustrated title page are somewhat browned. Blank preliminary with a contemporary gift inscription and a later ownership inscription.

This is the first Bentley edition, the first to appear in one volume and the first with any illustration. The frontispiece, engraved by W. Chevalier from a painting by Theodor von Holst, shows the monster emerging from a skeleton while Dr Frankenstein runs out of the door in horror. Holst (who was the great-uncle of the composer) studied with Fuseli and illustrated many important literary works especially those of the German romantics and the European gothicists. No-one was better qualified to produce the first illustration of the great gothic monster. Montague Summers, A Gothic Bibliography, p330.