This Top Five Classics illustrated edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein includes all 65 hauntingly beautiful, moody, and subtly erotic woodcut illustrations by Lynd Ward from his 1934 edition; the unabridged 1831 text of the popular revised edition by Mary Shelley; a helpful introduction; and a detailed author bio.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is the foundational text of both the horror and science fiction genres, a classic that has been read, discussed, and adapted in every medium for more than 200 years. Dreamed up when the author was only 18 while on holiday in Switzerland with her lover Percy Bysshe Shelley and the poet Lord Byron, Frankenstein is the result of a challenge from Byron to each write their own ghost story. The result was a tale that would become synonymous with horror, that would be the first novel to ask the question, Are there some things man was not meant to know?

Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant young scientist, discovers the secret to endowing inanimate flesh with life. Without thinking of the repercussions, he throws himself into realizing his ambition, only to recoil in terror at what he has created. Rejected by his creator and humanity, Frankenstein’s monster is driven by the primal desire to know love or, if denied that, to inspire fear.