PAYMENT OPTIONS

Forthcoming titles

(Book titles are subject to change)

A Royal Engineer in the Low Countries

A Cavalry Surgeon at Waterloo

With the Third Guards during the Peninsular War

The First and Last Campaigns of the Great War

Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Vincent O'Sullivan

Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Algernon Blackwood

Narratives of the Anglo-Zulu War

and many others

The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Mary Shelley Volume 1

enlarge Click on image to enlarge
enlarge Mouse over the image to zoom in
The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Mary Shelley Volume 1
Leonaur Original
Qty:     - OR -   Add to Wish List

Author(s): Mary Shelley
Date Published: 2010/02
Page Count: 492
Softcover ISBN-13: 978-0-85706-057-0
Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-0-85706-058-7

Tales from a Mistress of the Gothic

Mary Shelley is possibly one of the most renowned women authors of all time. She is, of course, the literary creator of the iconic Frankenstein’s monster and that alone has guaranteed it and her immortality rivalled only by Bram Stoker’s Dracula in the pantheon of the bizarre. Beyond her most famous literary work, ’Frankenstein,’ she possessed an incredible creative talent, responsible for a dazzling collection of novels, short stories, essays, plays, biographies and travel books. Mary Shelley was an independent, free thinking woman, decades before her time, who strongly adhered the ideals of her father, the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother, the feminist and liberal Mary Wollstonecraft. She notoriously—for her time—became the mistress of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and she subsequently married him upon the suicide of his wife. Those familiar with ‘Frankenstein’ will not be surprised to find it within this special collection, but those for whom it will be a new experience will discover a superb work of fiction which towers above our perceptions of it from its familiarity through film and television. Fortunately, Mary Shelley did not confine her excursions into the other worldly, weird and Gothic to just this tale of the ‘man-made’ man. This two volume edition contains two novels and many shorter pieces in testament to Mary Shelley’s talent for the literature of the macabre.
In this the first volume the reader will discover the classic novel, ‘Frankenstein’ together with fourteen shorter pieces including, ‘The Mortal Immortal,’ ‘Valerius: the Reanimated Roman,’ ‘The Mourner’ and many others.
Available in soft cover and hard cover with dust jacket. 

The voice of the wretch was screeching and horrid, and his contortions as he spoke were frightful to behold. Yet he did gain a kind of influence over me, which I could not master, and I told him my tale. When it was ended, he laughed long and loud: the rocks echoed back the sound: hell seemed yelling around me.<br>
“Oh, thou cousin of Lucifer!” said he; “so thou too hast fallen through thy pride; and, though bright as the son of Morning, thou art ready to give up thy good looks, thy bride, and thy well-being, rather than submit thee to the tyranny of good. I honour thy choice, by my soul!—So thou hast fled, and yield the day; and mean to starve on these rocks, and to let the birds peck out thy dead eyes, while thy enemy and thy betrothed rejoice in thy ruin. Thy pride is strangely akin to humility, methinks.”<br>
As he spoke, a thousand fanged thoughts stung me to the heart.<br>
“What would you that I should do?” I cried.<br>
“I!—Oh, nothing, but lie down and say your prayers before you die. But, were I you, I know the deed that should be done.”<br>
I drew near him. His supernatural powers made him an oracle in my eyes; yet a strange unearthly thrill quivered through my frame as I said, “Speak! teach me what act do you advise?”<br>
“Revenge thyself, man!—humble thy enemies!—set thy foot on the old man’s neck, and possess thyself of his daughter!”<br>
“To the east and west I turn,” cried I, “and see no means! Had I gold, much could I achieve; but, poor and single, I am powerless.”<br>
The dwarf had been seated on his chest as he listened to my story. Now he got off; he touched a spring; it flew open! What a mine of wealth of blazing jewels, beaming gold, and pale silver was displayed therein. A mad desire to possess this treasure was born within me.<br>
“Doubtless,” I said, “one so powerful as you could do all things.”<br>
“Nay,” said the monster humbly, “I am less omnipotent than I seem. Some things I possess which you may covet; but I would give them all for a small share, or even for a loan of what is yours.”<br>
“My possessions are at your service,” I replied bitterly—“my poverty, my exile, my disgrace—I make a free gift of them all.”<br>
“Good! I thank you. Add one other thing to your gift, and my treasure is yours.”<br>
“As nothing is my sole inheritance, what besides nothing would you have?”<br>
“Your comely face and well-made limbs.”<br>
I shivered. Would this all-powerful monster murder me? I had no dagger. I forgot to pray—but I grew pale.<br>
“I ask for a loan, not a gift,” said the frightful thing: “lend me your body for three days—you shall have mine to cage your soul the while, and, in payment, my chest. What say you to the bargain?—Three short days.”<br>
We are told that it is dangerous to hold unlawful talk; and well do I prove the same. Tamely written down, it may seem incredible that I should lend any ear to this proposition; but, in spite of his unnatural ugliness, there was something fascinating in a being whose voice could govern earth, air, and sea. I felt a keen desire to comply; for with that chest I could command the world. My only hesitation resulted from a fear that he would not be true to his bargain. Then, I thought, I shall soon die here on these lonely sands, and the limbs he covets will be mine no more:—it is worth the chance.
You may also like