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The "Gem" Classics

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A Collection of World-famous Classics in dainty binding. Photogravure frontispiece. netian morocco. Per volume, $1.00.

RASSELAS. BY SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.

RELIGIO MEDICI, ETC. BY SIR THOMAS BROWNE.

THE STORY OF THE CHEVALIER BAYARD. BY EDITH WALFord.

VATHEK: An Eastern Romance. By WILLIAM BECKFORD.

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FRANKENSTEIN OR THE MODERN PROMETHEUS. By MRS. SHELLEY.

REFLECTIONS OF ROCHEFOUCAULD.

"Unusually well made and attractive.”

-Dial, Chicago.

"For purity of text, elegance of typography, and beauty of external form, they cannot be equalled."-Church Standard Philadelphia.

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Preface.

THE event on which this fiction is founded has been supposed, by Dr. Darwin, and some of the physiological writers of Germany, as not of impossible occurrence. I shall not be supposed as recording the remotest degree of serious faith to such an imagination; yet, in assuming it as the basis of a work of fancy, I have not considered myself as merely weaving a series of supernatural terrors. The event on which the interest of the story depends is exempt from the disadvantages of a mere tale of specters of enchantment. It was recommended by the novelty of the situations which it develops; and, however impossible as a physical fact, affords a point of view to the imagination for the delineating of human passions more comprehensive and commanding than any which the ordinary relations of existing events can yield.

I have thus endeavored to preserve the truth of the elementary principles of human nature, while I have not scrupled to innovate upon their combinations. The "Iliad," the tragic poetry of Greece; Shakespeare, in the "Tem

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