Frankenstein turns 200
Mary Shelley’s famous tale of horror, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, made its first appearance in print on Jan. 1, 1818. The novel gained notoriety almost immediately as another entry in the wildly popular genre of Gothic fiction, and has stood the test of time as a literary classic and one of the first pieces of science fiction.
In the 20th and 21st centuries, the novel has been reinterpreted many times, both in print and and on film. To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the novel, we’ve created a a creepy portrait gallery of Mary Shelley’s monster from our print and archival collections:
Illustration by Everett Henry from the 1934 edition published by the Limited Editions Club (call number: Limited Editions Club Collection 1934 no. 7):
Illustration by Barry Moser from the 1983 Pennyroyal Press edition (call number: Vault Collection Quarto 094.2 P385 1983):
Boris Karloff and Dwight Frye in Frankenstein (Universal, 1931), from the Film Stills Collection:
Ilona Massey, Lon Chaney, Jr., and Boris Karloff from Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (Universal, 1943), Film Stills Collection:
