Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus
West Hatfield, MA: Pennyroyal Press, 1983.
Deluxe limited edition, #1 of 5 advance proof copies from a total print run of 350 copies. Signed by Barry Moser on the limitation page at rear. xvi, 282 pp. Small folio, bound in publisher's maroon cloth over quarter tan morocco, raised bands and maroon morocco title label to spine. Very Near Fine with small stain to spine and narrow scuff to rear board. Together with maroon cloth chemise containing additional suite of 52 wood engravings on 13-3/4 x 10 inch sheets, 20 proofs on 11-1/2 x 9-1/2 sheets, and one pencil sketch of Victor Frankenstein on tracing paper, all signed by Moser in pencil below plate. Proofs include 15 views of the monster's face and 5 other illustrations, various inkings. Narrow faint stain to lower edge of one sheet, otherwise clean and bright. Book and chemise housed in publisher’s sturdy charcoal cloth slipcase.
When Barry Moser began what he came to consider his greatest book, his first instinct was to depict Frankenstein’s monster as a metaphor for the horrors unleashed by the modern age, complete with atomic bomb imagery. Realizing that a timeless book had to be less topical, he took his cue instead from the scene in which the monster rescues a young woman from drowning. He is promptly shot by her boyfriend for no better reason than being large and yellow, and Moser later wrote:
"In this scene I discovered a monster I know on a first-name basis. His name is Bigotry. His name is Hate. His name is Racism. Ignorance. Intolerance. My family was real friendly with him, and so was I growing up in Tennessee in the '40s and '50s. He wore a white sheet and burned crosses.”
Most of the book’s wood engravings are printed in black and white, but the second volume, in which the monster tells his own story, contains a sequence of 8 color prints – partial closeups of the monster’s face, as though he were being seen in the dim light of the fire shared by himself and his creator. "Warm colors, these,” wrote Moser, “behind black, a metaphor of my sympathy with the monster. A ministration in my struggle as a recovering racist."
Price: $15,000