Frankenstein for millions

A first edition copy was sold for $1.17 million at Christie's auction in New York Frankenstein . Before the auction, it was estimated to find a buyer for $200,000-300,000.

Mary Shelley's novel was first published in 1818, anonymously, in an edition of 500 copies. The three-volume edition (in accordance with the fashion of the time) was provided with an introduction by the author's husband, the poet Percy Shelley, and dedicated to her father, William Godwin.

The idea for the novel was born in 1816, when Shelley, her husband, and Lord Byron were vacationing at Lake Geneva. The group first read ghost stories to each other, then began to create their own.

“I set myself to invent a story—a story that would compete with those that had excited me for the task. One that would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and turn into a terrifying horror. One that would make the reader afraid to look around, freeze the blood and quicken the heart,” Shelley wrote in the preface to the next edition of Frankenstein in 1831.

The book came from the collection of Theodore B. Baum, one of the directors of American cable television.

The most interesting copy of the first edition of "Frankenstein" that appeared on the antiquarian market was discovered by accident in 2011. Although only one of the three volumes survived, it contained a handwritten dedication Mary Shelley for… Lord Byron. The book was sold in 2012 to a British buyer . The transaction amount was not disclosed.