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# Frankenstein First Edition Became the Most Expensive Book by a Woman
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/frankenstein-first-edition-became-the-most-expensive-book-by-a-woman/
- Published: 2021-09-22T20:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:21:42.000Z
- Description: The rare copy of Mary Shelley's classic, one of only 500 copies, sold for $1.17 million at Christie's.
- Author: Valentina Di Liscia
- Tags: News, Christie's, Frankenstein, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 09:11 (2021, 2022, part 1)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2021/09/frankenstein.jpg)

Mary Shelley's *Frankenstein* sold at Christie's for nearly four times its high estimate. (courtesy Christie's Images Ltd. 2021)

At the time of its publication, Mary Shelley's classic horror novel*Frankenstein* was met with mixed -- and sexist -- reviews. “The writer of it is, we understand, a female; this is an aggravation of that which is the prevailing fault of the novel," read [one write-up](https://sites.udel.edu/britlitwiki/literary-influences-and-reception/?ref=hyperallergic.com) for *The British Critic*. Now, more than 200 years later, a [rare first edition](https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6332204?ref=hyperallergic.com) of the gothic masterpiece has becomethe most expensive printed work by a woman ever sold at auction.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2021/09/dracula.jpg)

Bram Stoker's *Dracula*, presentation copy (courtesy Christie's Images Ltd. 2021)

One of 500 original copies published on January 1, 1818, the book fetched $1.17 million at a Christie's sale in New York City last week, nearly four times its high estimate of $300,000\. It was part of the collection of the late American cable television executive Theodore B. Baum, whose impressive library of literary first editions included original works by Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, and Virginia Woolf, among others.Another highlight of the sale was an inscribed first edition of Bram Stoker's [*Dracula*](https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-6332215?ldp%5Fbreadcrumb=back&intobjectid=6332215&from=salessummary&lid=1&ref=hyperallergic.com) that sold for $275,000, setting an auction record for the epistolary novel.

Baum's copy of *Frankenstein* was especially coveted, Christie's [says](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/sep/20/frankenstein-first-edition-sets-world-auction-record-for-a-printed-work-by-a-woman-mary-shelley?ref=hyperallergic.com), because it is uncut in the original boards (a pasteboard binding typical of 18th-century books and desirable feature for collectors). The edition, which includes a preface written by Mary's husband, poet Percy Shelley, and a dedication to the author’s father, William Godwin, is the only set in original boards to appear at auction since 1985.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2021/09/mary_wollstonecraft_shelley_rothwell-1.jpg)

An 1840 portrait of Shelley by Richard Rothwell. (via [Wikimedia Commons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary%5FShelley?ref=hyperallergic.com#/media/File:Mary%5FWollstonecraft%5FShelley%5FRothwell.tif))

Considered today to be [the first science-fiction novel](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/11/the-science-fiction-that-came-before-science/508067/?ref=hyperallergic.com#:~:text=Critics%20like%20Brian%20Aldiss%20have,miracle%2C%20but%20purely%20through%20science.), Shelley's story was not particularly attractive to publishing houses at the time of its writing. The manuscript was turned down by two publishers before it was accepted byLackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones, which "[dealt mainly in cheap books](https://books.google.com/books?id=oik67GxBdXIC&pg=PA190&lpg=PA190&dq=%22dealt+mainly+in+cheap+books%22&source=bl&ots=1gfh6AvyEm&sig=ACfU3U0q17ODOOvVmfxybIVi9N4qXXn4NA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiJwpXHg5PzAhWnZd8KHeMaDVgQ6AF6BAgCEAM#v=onepage&q=%22dealt%20mainly%20in%20cheap%20books%22&f=false)," according to biographerMiranda Seymour. She got a third of the profits, but none of the renown; somereaders surmised it was a man's work, and many [question its authorship](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/13/frankenstein-at-200-why-hasnt-mary-shelley-been-given-the-respect-she-deserves-?CMP=Share%5FiOSApp%5FOther&ref=hyperallergic.com) to this day.

“The author, by a convention of the time, would remain anonymous," Seymour writes. "This was unfortunate for Mary: with her husband writing the Preface, references to his ‘friend’ seemed a thin disguise for the fact that he had written the novel himself.”