HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open!' Written when Mary Shelley was only nineteen-years old, this chilling tale of a young scientist's desire to create life still resonates today. Victor Frankenstein's monster is stitched together from the stolen limbs of the dead, and the result is a grotesque being who, rejected by his maker, sets out on a journey to reek his revenge. In the most famous gothic horror story ever told, Shelley confronts the limitations of science, the nature of human cruelty and the pathway to forgiveness with rich language and evocative imagery.

Frankenstein is probably the most famous horror story in the world. Victor Frankenstein is a young scientist who creates a monster from parts of dead bodies. At first the monster looks for love and wants to be kind. But soon, he learns to hate people and becomes evil. Frankenstein has learnt how to create life. But will this life destroy him?

Victor Frankenstein thinks he has found the secret of life. He takes parts from dead people and builds a new 'man'. But this monster is so big and frightening that everyone runs away from him — even Frankenstein himself! The monster is like an enormous baby who needs love. But nobody gives him love, and soon he learns to hate. And, because he is so strong, the next thing he learns is how to kill...

A retold version of one of the most famous and inventive horror stories ever written.

A fascination with science and the aspiration to understand the mysteries of creation lead Victor Frankenstein to create life from death. But the results are not what he expects and his rejection of his monstrous creation causes dire consequences for himself and all the people he cares about.

Mary Shelley was not yet twenty years old when she wrote this classic tale of a scientist’s attempt to create a new noble species – an experiment which instead produces a monster. Frankenstein is here presented in the 2nd, revised edition of 1831 and includes an analysis of the most recent criticism on Shelley’s science fiction masterpiece, as well as an extensive filmography.

«Vintage Monsters» is a limited edition gift pack which consists of beautifully designed separate volumes of «Frankenstein» by Mary Shelley and Jeanette Winterson's «Sexing the Cherry». «Vintage Monsters» is just one of ten «Vintage Classic Twins» to collect. Each twin consists of two books: a specially designed limited edition of one modern classic title and one established classic work. The books in each pair have been carefully selected to provide a thought-provoking combination. «Frankenstein»: One freezing morning, a lone man wandering across the artic ice caps is rescued from starvation by a ship's captain. Victor Frankenstein's story is one of ambition, murder and revenge. As a young scientist he pushed moral boundaries in order to cross the final scientific frontier and create life. But his creation is a monster stitched together from grave-robbed body parts who has no place in the world, and his life can only lead to tragedy. «Sexing the Cherry»: «Sexing the Cherry» follows the adventures of Jordan, an explorer, and his mother, the gigantic and violent 'Dog Woman'. Jeanette Winterson's stunning novel celebrates the power of the imagination as it juggles with our perception of history and reality; love and sex; lies and truths; and 12 dancing princesses who lived happily ever after, but not with their husbands.»

«The Last Man» is Mary Shelley's apocalyptic fantasy of the end of human civilisation. Set in the late twenty-first century, the novel unfolds a sombre and pessimistic vision of mankind confronting inevitable destruction. Interwoven with her futuristic theme, Mary Shelley incorporates idealised portraits of Shelley and Byron, yet rejects Romanticism and its faith in art and nature. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851) was the only daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, author of «Vindication of the Rights of Woman», and the radical philosopher William Godwin. Her mother died ten days after her birth and the young child was educated through contact with her father's intellectual circle and her own reading. She met Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1812; they eloped in July 1814.In the summer of 1816 she began her first and most famous novel, «Frankenstein». Three of her children died in early infancy and in 1822 her husband was drowned. Mary returned to England with her surviving son and wrote novels, short stories and accounts of her travels; she was the first editor of P.B.Shelley's poetry and verse.»

«Tor Classics are affordably-priced editions designed to attract the young reader. Original dynamic cover art enthusiastically represents the excitement of each story. Appropriate «reader friendly» type sizes have been chosen for each title — offering clear, accurate, and readable text. All editions are complete and unabridged, and feature Introductions and Afterwords. This edition of Frankenstein includes a Foreword, Biographical Note, and Afterword by Keith Neilson. When obsessed university student Victor Frankenstein finds the secret of animating dead flesh, he tries to create the first of a master race, stitching rotting corpses into a superhuman giant. Then the ghastly thing opens its hideous, soulless eyes and Frankenstein flees into the night, shrieking with horror. Leaving a being who wants love and finds hate, wants friends and finds enemies, wants another and finds no one. Frankenstein is its father, mother, maker and living god, and Frankenstein has abandonded his own monster to a living hell of unutterable isolation. But now, unstoppable, the creature means to get revenge for having been born. Not by killing its creator...but by destroying everything holds dear, and everyone Frankenstein loves...»

«Begun when the author was only eighteen and conceived from a nightmare, «Frankenstein», is the deeply disturbing story of a monstrous creation which has terrified and chilled readers since its first publication in 1818. The novel has thus seared its way into the popular imagination while establishing itself as one of the pioneering works of modern science fiction.»

A fascination with science and the aspiration to understand the mysteries of creation lead Victor Frankenstein to create life from death. But the results are not what he expects and his rejection of his monstrous creation causes dire consequences for himself and all the people he cares about.

A stimulating selection of extracts from important works and short stories by major authors of the 19th and 20th centuries – Mary Shelley, Emily Brontë, R. L. Stevenson, Oscar Wilde, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and George Orwell – which aims to improve students’ linguistic competence and introduce them to concepts of literary analysis through a wide range of activities. Each chapter also includes a chronology of the author’s life and a synoptic table to help students to contextualise what they read.