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Milner, H. M., and [Wollstonecraft Shelley, Mary].
The First Published Image of Frankenstein’s Monster. Frankenstein: or, The Man and the Monster! A Melo Drama, in Two Acts...
Publisher: Printed by J. Duncombe and Co., London;
Date of Publication: 1826
Stock Code: 14262
Duodecimo, pp., 28. With stipple-engraved frontispiece of Richard John Smith (1786-1855) in costume as Frankenstein’s Monster, and woodblock at end depicting the position of the cast as the curtain falls. Henry M. Milner’s theatrical adaptation of Frankenstein was first performed on the 3rd of July 1826. It took significant liberties with Shelley’s novel, but was the first to depict the now iconic creation scene on stage. Importantly the frontispiece to the play is the first ever published pictorial representation of the Monster as the play precedes the publication of the 3rd edition of Shelley’s novel (which was the first with an illustrated frontispiece, of the Monster) by 5 years. There appear to be at least three variant title-pages to this work, with none having precedence. Milner’s adaption was his greatest success as a playwright, the first performance took place less than six months after the publication of Mary Shelley’s ‘The Last Man’ and the success of her second novel certainly helped. This is not however to understate Milner’s dramatic flair, famously he was the first to introduce a lab setting with scientific apparatus on stage and there are specific stage directions, set to dramatic music, for the rise of the Monster from the laboratory slab (Act I, Scene III p. 11). The latter device specifically was designed to terrify the unsuspecting audience and although neither appear in the book both immediately became synonymous with dramatic adaptions of the novel. Navy blue half-calf over marbled paper boards, blind rolls to boards, double gilt fillets to spine compartments, titled to red leather spine label. Edges speckled red. Deaccessioned stamp of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries to p. 5. Upper joint cracked, shelf wear and scuffs to boards. Offsetting from Frankenstein’s Monster frontispiece to title-page otherwise internally a clean copy. Bound in a sammelband with nine other nineteenth-century plays, each with a frontispiece and all published by Duncombe. Some very occasional spots of foxing to other plays. Broad in tone and subject, they range from nautical to comedic theatricals and help to contextualize the theatrical landscape endeavours of Milner.

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