Lynd Ward's woodcuts can be breathtaking. His illustrations for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein punch through the veneers of many who approach illustrating the text, and offer up an inner view of the struggle both within Frankenstein and the Creature.
My own interpretation of the novel suggests to me that the Creature is not real, as the evidence for his existence is only from the raving stories of his creator and presumably the eyewitness testimony of the Captain who ultimately tells the tell. But I maintain that the Captain, a man similar in mindset and unhealthy motivation to Frankenstein has been equally deluded, and so his testimony is tainted.
The task Mary Shelley (or her husband depending on who you believe really authored the text) was the create a ghost story, and I think it is a masterful one, so good that uncounted millions have seen the apparition over the many many years.
Ward gets at that sense of interior madness with his contorted images. For more of his work see this magnificent link.
And while I'm on the subject of Frankenstein, here's Edgar Winter's magnificent song of that name. Put that music behind Ward's images and you have something remarkable.
For a more prosaic rendition of the classic gothic horror, here's a link to the Classics Illustrated version of the story. Below is the magnificent Norman Saunders cover for one edition of that comic.
And here's the dramatic splash page by Robert Webb.
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