One of my earliest childhood horror memories is seeing the 2-part mini-series Frankenstein: The True Story when it first aired in 1973. While I had no idea how far from the “true story” it was, as a young, eager horror fan, I just loved it and remains a personal favorite of mine to this day.

Back in 2017, Little Shoppe of Horrors magazine did a huge special issue on the making of this film, with Sam Irving taking on this dream job, since he’d been a fan as well since the original premiere, writing about it and doing several interviews on it in his horror fanzine Bizarre that he put out in the ’70s. The new piece for LSoH was 120 pages, packed with 400 photos, new interviews with the cast and crew, with an amazing cover art by artist Mark Maddox. This would lead to a Blu-ray release of the film by Shout Factory with an incredible commentary as well as interviews with some of the cast.

Fast forward to now, Sam Irvin just announced that coming this fall will be an actual book on the making of his film, entitled The Epic Saga Behind Frankenstein: The True Story. This bad boy will be 360 pages, includes hundreds of new unpublished photos, a Foreword by the late Anne Rice, and an Afterword by Guillermo del Toro, as well as a brand-new front and back cover artwork by Mark Maddox, which is below.

The book includes interviews that Irving has collected with over 20 cast and crew members, which include actors Leonard Whiting, Jane Seymour, David McCallum, Nicola Pagett, Margaret Leighton, co-screenwriter Don Bachardy, and associate producer Ian Lewis, as well as an “exhaustive biography” of Hunt Stromberg Jr. There are also input from the likes of Angela Lansbury, Richard Chamberlain, Jon Voight, Rick Baker, Mark Gatiss, and so many more!

The details on when exactly it will be out has not been announced yet, but it should be published this fall. Stay tuned for details.