The Bride of Frankenstein (Sequel to Frankenstein)

London: The Readers Library Publishing Company Ltd, 1936. Presumed first Readers Library edition (no other Readers Library printings listed). Hardcover. 252pp. Duodecimo [17 cm] Publisher's decorated blue-green boards, stamped in gold (gold on spine faded). Slight lean to spine, text block cracked a couple of times, text paper age toned (as is typical with this type of paper), professional repair to rear joint and tears to spine ends, a good to very good copy. No dust jacket. Copies bound in cloth with the Queensway Press imprint were intended for the library market while this simultaneous cheaper issue with the Readers Library imprint were sold in Woolworth's for 6d. "Copyright Edition (All Rights Reserved) 441" printed on copyright page. Novel based on the James Whale film "The Bride of Frankenstein" (1935) starring Elsa Lanchester and Boris Karloff. From George Locke's introduction to the American edition from Bookfinger, he provides the following information: After the movie was completed it was realized that no book existed for a tie-in. The Hutchinson (U.K.) publishing group which owned the Readers Library imprint commissioned author Michael Harrison to produce a novel. Mr. Harrison was given three weeks to produce a finished work. Harrison started working from a shooting script for the film which contained not only the dialog but the shooting details also. After getting bogged down following the script and working under deadline Harrison decided to ignore the script (but not the story)... the remaining work represented so radical a departure from the script that the finished book was to all intents and purposes original fiction. Harrison took his pseudonym from a public house, The Egremont Arms. [reference: Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, p. 77. Sullivan (ed), The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural, pp. 53-4. Bleiler (1978), p. 68. Reginald 04717].