Ballantine Books is releasing Monsters: A Celebration of the Classics From Universal Studios ($29.95) on September 26th the same day that the 75th Anniversary Edition Frankenstein DVD ships from Universal Home Video.  Ballantine's Monsters volume is a lavishly illustrated tribute to the classic Universal monster movies: Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Wolfman, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, the Creature From the Black Lagoon, and The Phantom of the Opera.  Although most of the stills and photographs from these classic films reprinted here have been seen before, they have rarely been presented in such slick and sumptuous format.

This sort of volume is all about the photos -- what text there is consists of essays by descendants of horror titans like Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, and Bela Lugosi and by directors (Stephen Sommers) and stars (Jennifer Beals) who have participated in remakes of the Universal classics.  Monster maven Forry J. Ackerman (live from 'Horrorwood, Karloffornia') provides the foreward, a sure sign that this is a volume intended for the hardcore fan, as is the 2-disc 75th Anniversary Edition Frankenstein, which is actually the third version of the 1931 James Whale classic to appear on DVD.