Author:Mary Shelley

The challenge of determining the various editions of "Frankenstein" has been attacked by several authors. In listing the early editions of the work here, we have relied heavily on "Mary Shelley in Her Times", by Betty T. Bennett &amp; Stuart Curran, 2003, pp. 57-60. William St. Clair, in his article in this book, lists the editions as: Lackington, 1818 (3 vols) Whittacker, 1823 (2 vols) Bentley's Standard Novels (1 vol), 1831, with additional imprints in 1832, 1836, 1839, 1849. Hodgson's "Parlour Library" edition, 1855 Routledge edition, 1882-1899 (with several printings) Milner's "Cottage Library" edition, probably 1880's. (No copies known, but widely advertised.) Dick's English Library of Standard Works edition, 1883. Stead's "Penny Popular Novels" edition, 1893. Gibbings/Lippincott edition, 1897. Downey's Sixpenny Library edition, c. 1897. (No copies known, but advertised.) Routledge editions, 1909-1914. Everyman's Library edition, 1912.  They also list additional imprints after 1912, and give known or estimated print runs for all these edition. In the case of the "Penny Popular Novels," they have the date wrong. W. T. Stead did not begin his Penny Popular Novels until 1896, as described by the Stead historian Sally Wood-Lamont and in Writers, Readers, and Reputations: Literary Life in Britain, 1870-1918, by Philip J. Waller. In Index to the periodicals of 1895 (published in 1896), the editor writes about magazines that have come and gone up to about mid-1896, and says there were 26 Penny Popular Novels so far. (Frankenstein is #49). in The Labour Annual: the Reformers' Yearbook for 1897, written at the end of 1896, they say there are 45 volumes of the Penny Popular Novels so far, hence Frankenstein has not yet been released. Then in English Fiction in Transition, 1880-1920 (Vol. 5, #4), they remark that Penny Popular Novel #77 was released during 1897, which tells us that this particular edition was released in 1897.

The St. Clair listing also omits the 1833 Carey, Lea and Blanchard edition which we have listed, based on WorldCat data.

For extensive information about dramatizations of Frankenstein, see Steven Earl Forry's article, from "English Language Notes", December 1987.