ABC News' Daisha Riley reports:

A previously unknown personal scrapbook belonging to late actress Marilyn Monroe showing the screen siren in candid shots has been made public.

The photos, revealed after more than 40 years, are showcased in "The Lost Scrapbook," a special issue of Newsweek that hits newsstands on Thursday.

"She was huge, she was beautiful and she embodies so much of Hollywood," said Newsweek Senior Editor Abigail Jones.

In one of the images, Monroe wears just a towel. In another, she's wearing a dress.

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Monroe selected the images herself and gave them in booklet form as a birthday gift to photographer Sam Shaw. Her own witty, handwritten captions were scrawled in crayon.

"These are the photos that she chose…. these are the feelings that she had," said Jones. "The discovery of the scrapbook is also significant because it's the first time we're understanding her relationship with Sam Shaw."

Journalist Lawrence Schiller, who photographed Monroe during "Something's Got to Give," the last movie she filmed before her death in 1962, told Newsweek that Shaw gave him the lost scrapbook in 1972.

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Schiller also told the magazine that Shaw confided to him that he and Monroe had an affair.

Shaw, who died in 1999, was the man who snapped the famous photo of Monroe standing over a subway grate, skirt billowing, during the filming of "The Seven-Year Itch."

Monroe was found dead in her home on Aug. 5, 1962, at age 36. Officials said she died of an overdose of prescription sedatives and the death was ruled a probable suicide.