2 volumes in one, 8vo (165 x 101 mm). Engraved frontispiece, additional title with engraved vignette by Theodor von Holst; 2 ad leaves at rear (very mild offsetting to engraved title). Contemporary forest green half morocco gilt (rubbing to spine); folding case.

THE FIRST DEPICTION OF FRANKENSTEIN'S CREATURE.

FIRST ILLUSTRATED EDITION, third edition overall, with Shelley's revisions and her account of the novel's creation. Published as no. 9 in Bentley's Standard Novels series, conceived by publishers Richard Bentley and Henry Colburn in order to bring together in single volumes popular works of fiction that had previously been published in three-volume form. In the run-up to publication Mary Shelley performed numerous revisions to the 1818 and 1823 texts in order to remove some of the more radical elements of the two earlier editions and wrote a new introduction in which she relates for the first time the famous "ghost story contest" with Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Dr. John Polidori that led to the novel's creation. This edition was the first to depict Frankenstein's creature and was published on October 31, 1831. Lyles B4a; Sadleir 3734a; Summers, p.330; Wolff 6205, 6280a.