Illustration of Mary Shelley by Mark Summers

This scratchboard caricature presents Mary Shelley as both creator and creation. Her needlework references the morbid experiment of her Frankenstein. It also suggests the ways in which she used the commercial power of her masterpiece to stitch her life together after the death of her husband. The portrait first appeared in a 1989 issue of The New York Times Book Review with an article titled “Was There Life After Percy?” That same year its creator, the Canadian illustrator Mark Summers, began the work for which he is best known: designing in-store branding and tote bags for Barnes & Noble Booksellers.