Preview · Page 1 of 2
Meet the Book
This is the book’s own stage: the Creature himself — from Theodor von Holst’s 1831 frontispiece, the first image of him ever printed — stands on the stage while Mary Shelley’s book is read whole, aloud, in the Creature’s own voice — the original 1818 first-edition text, complete and unaltered in one volume: Walton’s letters, Victor’s confession, and the Creature’s own tale in his own voice, with Saint-Saëns’ Danse macabre (1874), in its 1925 recording, playing low beneath the words. The bookstore barcode rides every frame — scan any moment to come back to this bookstore.
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Preview · Page 2 of 2
What’s Inside
- The complete 1818 text: the Preface, Letters I–IV, and all three volumes of chapters — Volume I Chapters I–VII, Volume II Chapters I–IX, Volume III Chapters I–VII — every word as it first appeared in 1818, not the later rewrite.
- 7 hours 7 minutes of narration — the Creature reads Shelley’s own book aloud, chapter by chapter, in a reading room you can follow with your eyes, while he stands on the stage and the Danse macabre plays low beneath.
- The book’s pictures — von Holst’s 1831 frontispiece (the first image of the Creature ever printed), the 1831 illustrated title page, and T. P. Cooke, the first actor ever to play the Creature (1823). The 1818 edition itself had no pictures, and the book says so honestly.
- The barcode rides every stage frame — scan any moment to come back to this bookstore.
This is the public-domain text of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, first edition (London, 1818), from Project Gutenberg #41445. Mary Shelley died in 1851, more than a hundred and seventy years ago. The narration is a synthesized reading (Piper — Alan, the Creature’s voice) of that text, made for this edition; the figure on the stage is the Creature from Theodor von Holst’s 1831 frontispiece — the 1818 edition had no illustrations, and the book says so plainly in its disclaimer, which stands first, before the book begins. Editor: Franklin Langston.
franklinlangston.gumroad.com/l/jasaal
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