Mary: or, The Birth of Frankenstein
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‘A fantastically moody, unsettling novel, with a teasing, enigmatic atmosphere entirely its own’ SARAH WATERS
‘Intensely lyrical and powerfully haunting… Sublime storytelling and Gothic fiction at its very best!’ SUSAN STOKES-CHAPMAN
‘A novel about wild, dissident passion, the profound dislocations of grief, and the intoxication of composition’ NAOMI BOOTH
‘A beautiful, hallucinatory dream of a novel’ J.M. MIRO
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There is a beast inside her, a monster. It wants to scream, it wants to tear things apart.
1816. Mary, eighteen years old, is staying in a villa on Lake Geneva with her lover Percy Shelley. She is tormented by his infidelities; haunted by the loss of her baby daughter.
Then one evening with friends, as storms rage outside and laudanum stirs their imaginations, Lord Byron challenges everyone to write a ghost story, and something fierce and wild awakens in Mary.
Memories surface of the long, strange summer she once spent with a family in Scotland, where she found herself falling in love with the enigmatic Isabella Baxter. She learned tales of mythical beasts, witches and spirits. And she encountered real monsters – both in the rocky wilds, and far, far closer to home…
Illuminating the past like a flash of lightning, this brilliant reimagining of the birth of Frankenstein takes us into a feverish world of waking dreams-where grief mingles with desire, and the veil between beauty and horror grows thin.
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PRAISE FOR FOR MARY
‘Like reading a laudanum dram’ ANNIE GARTHWAITE, author of Cecily
‘Rich, intricate and beguiling, this is a novel of enormous insight, great heart and incredible skill’ NELL STEVENS
‘A novel that tiptoes and whispers, woos and caresses like the darkest of fairytales’ JOANNE BURN, author of The Hemlock Cure
‘A literary creation story as bold, terrifying, and riveting as Frankenstein itself’ LAURIE LICO ALBANESE
‘A lyrical dream of a book that strays into the nightmarish, the gothic and the eerie with an assured elegance’ ELIZABETH LEE, author of Cunning Women
‘Mary reveals the rich inner life of one of the world’s greatest creative imaginations’ Sarah Sheridan
‘Creative confirmation of Shelley’s position as the mother of all goth girls. A moody and evocative reveal of the backstory (behind the backstory) of Frankenstein’ KIRKUS
‘A nuanced, beautifully atmospheric portrayal of a young woman’s intense inner life, foreshadowing Frankenstein’s themes of grief, loneliness, and the desire for love’ BOOKLIST
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Additional information
| Publisher | Pushkin Press, 1st edition (2 Nov. 2023) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Hardcover | 384 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1782278974 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1782278979 |
| Dimensions | 15.3 x 3.4 x 23.4 cm |
by Ms. M. Glover
For fans of Frankenstein, like myself, I’ve read and seen a few adaptations telling how she got the idea to write her novel. This book, “Mary: or The Birth of Frankenstein” by Anne Eekhout goes one step further providing a lot more background, including a massively influential time spent in Scotland with the Baxters. It is there that Mary encounters a lot of things including love for a young woman, a dark and foreboding man with a science lab and lots of myths. This, coupled with the trauma of the death of Mary’s first child, manifests itself in the book in the form of very disturbing dreams. Whether this is the imagination of Eekhout or fact, no wonder Mary Shelley wrote such a disturbing novel.
by Alice Maud Mary
I have recently read “Frankenstein” with a book group, and was very interested to read Eekhout’s novel describing what experiences might have influenced Mary Shelley and inspired her to write “Frankenstein”.
This novel imagines Shelley’s childhood and adolescence, and portrays the attitude to girls and women in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. It gives the reader a picture of how Shelley, then aged 18, might have managed to cope in the company of big male egos, a child, and a selfish half-sister in order to produce the unique and brilliant work “Frankenstein”.
by Lynda Checkley
A wonderful retelling about Mary Shelley, one of ‘The Famous Five’ and how during the ‘year without summer’ the five got together, sowing the seeds for one of the most famous sci-fi/horror stories ever – Frankenstein. The book opens in May 1816 in Geneva where 18 year old Mary is staying with her lover Percy Bysshe Shelley and stepsister Claire near to the home of Lord Byron (Albe) and his companion John Polidori. A slow paced brooding gothic drama with local myths and touches of fantasy making this a compelling read.
Briefly, one evening Byron challenges everyone to write a horror story which takes Mary back to her sojourn in Scotland in June 1812 when she was sent to Dundee to stay with the Baxter family for her health. The enigmatic Isabelle Baxter soon becomes friends with 14 year old Mary and together they take long walks in the countryside and spend time with her sister Margaret and her husband David Booth.
This is quite a dark tale of passion, obsession and love. The Romantic poets famously led quite dissolute lifestyles and women were treated pretty badly, like objects for male enjoyment, although I was surprised at how Mary allowed this to happen to her. Mary’s dreams are very disturbing but the most disturbing part of this book for me was the character David Booth, it sent shivers up my spine when he was ‘in the room’. A gothic historical sapphic retelling, the characters and storyline are well crafted and produced and atmospheric and entertaining read.
by L A MAYOR
May or the Birth of Frankenstein is an OK story of how Mary came to write Frankenstein. It explores how her time in Dundee, the death of her mother and baby daughter, and her husband’s infidelities all came together to allow her to create her renowned novel.
I liked the settings and felt they were great at evoking a sense of place and were very dark and atmospheric with all the storms. The fears of witches and monsters really create a sense of tension within the book
I would have liked her relationships with Percy, Claire, John and Lord Byron to be better developed as I felt there was a marked difference between the Geneva chapters and those set in Dundee with the Baxter family
Please be warned that Mary’s daughter’s death is discussed a lot which may be triggering for some.
by Annie G.
Like reading a laudanum dream… Both the language and narrative of Anne Eekhout’s book have a hallucinatory quality that encourages us to question everything and doubt everyone. The sense of danger, of violence at the hands of man or monsters, is imbued in every sentence. It brought me to a world where the old certainties of society, convention and religion have been stripped away, and where women like Mary Shelley, though unsure of her steps and uncertain of her fellows, found the courage to live and create.