Book news Tuesday: Happy Frankenstein Day

It's Frankenstein Day at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England (via ReadySteadyBook). Mary Shelley's original "Frankenstein" manuscripts are on display, and scholar Charles E. Robinson will speak about his new edition, "The Original Frankenstein," which may at last show what parts of the book were Mary Shelley's own and what contributions husband Percy Shelley made.

Going back to the unique draft manuscript of the text held in the Bodleian Library, Charles E. Robinson has identified up to 5,000 edits in Percy Shelley’s hand writing and has teased these out, isolating them from the story in Mary Shelley’s hand. Both texts -- with and without Percy’s interventions -- are presented in this edition, allowing us for the first time to read the story in Mary’s original hand and also to see how Percy edited his wife’s prose.

The results are fascinating. We read a more rapidly paced novel that is arranged in different chapters. Above all, we hear Mary’s genuine voice which sounds to us more modern, more immediately colloquial than her husband’s learned, more polished style.

Another kind of beast -- The Daily Beast, Tina Brown's new website -- has three book recommendations from President Clinton on the beastly economy. Since you'll have to scroll down on the page, here's the list: Gridlock Economy by Michael Heller, The World Is Curved by David M. Smick and Unequal Democracy by Larry M. Bartels.

The annual AIGA 50 Books/50 Covers design competition -- which judges books not only by their covers, as you might guess, but by the entirety of their design -- has its winners on display in New York City until November 26. Among the selections:  "I Am A Beautiful Monster," a visually complex book of poetry and prose by Francis Picabia from MIT Press.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Boris Karloff as Frankenstein / Universal Pictures