eBook: Frankenstein – The Original 1818 Edition by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is one of the most-celebrated novels in English literature. Wikipedia has a very good lengthy entry on the various aspects of the book and its influence, so if you want to dive deep it’s there for you.

There are two versions of the book, the 1818 original and an 1831 revision. The 1831 edition is the more common today and is considered less radical. Myself, I tend to prefer works that are more impulsive, more raw in their first execution and so we have a new ebook of the 1818 original.

I found some photos of the first edition and have used it as the design cue for this ebook.

The three-volume first edition of Frankenstein. 500 copies were printed.

This ebook edition. How many copies exist depends on how many people download it.

What You’ll Find Inside

It’s unfortunate the ebook industry is largely about generic presentation. The corporate publishers, afraid of erosion of print sales and their long-established business model, made sure that ebooks have been hobbled since their inception. Take the text, apply minimal formatting and charge a price that is close enough to the print version that they’ll always be the inferior bastard cousin to ‘real’ books. A less-desirable second choice.

The creators of the ePUB framework did not intend it to be this way. With ePUB 3 – introduced more than a decade ago now – they used the strengths of HTML 5 and CSS 3 to give book designers the power and flexibility to rival the highest-quality print presentations. And that’s where I live when I do these books. So if you download it and appreciate the work put into it: tell others. Tell authors. Tell publishers. Tell them you’d be willing to pay for ebooks of this quality at a price point that is a fraction of what the current ebook market charges.

At the very least, when you’re reading an ebook that allows you to set Publisher Fonts in the font menu, choose them. That usually means the book designer has put thought and effort into the typography and overall presentation to make a better reading experience for you.

Screenshot from the ePUB on an Apple iPad in the Books app.

Screenshot from the ePUB on an iPad.

Screenshot from the ePUB on an iPad.

Screenshot from the ePUB on an iPad.

Screenshots from the ePUB on an Apple iPhone in the Books app.

Screenshots from the AZW3 on a Kindle Paperwhite.

Screenshots from the KFX on an LG Android tablet in the Kindle app.

For the best reading results, choose Publisher Fonts in your ebook reading program.

Not sure which file to choose?
ePUB is for iOS, Kobo, Nook and many other programs and devices
AZW3 is the most-current Kindle format
KFX is another format for Kindle

Want to know more about eBook formats?