Mary - Or the Birth Of Frankenstein

Reimagining the genesis of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein through pitch-perfect Gothic prose, Eekhout's engrossing historical novel traces the dark roots that really inspired the seminal horror masterpiece.

As darkness falls and storms rage over Lake Geneva, a group of friends gather in a candle-lit-villa.

Among them are eighteen-year-old Mary and her mercurial lover Percy Shelley. As laudanum stirs their feverish imaginations, their host Lord Byron challenges everyone to write a ghost story.

Suddenly Mary is transported back to a long, strange summer in the wilds of Scotland, where she fell in love with the enigmatic Isabella Baxter.

As she remembers, something fierce and terrifying awakes within her. Now she will unleash it into the world.

Translated from Dutch by Laura Watkinson.

Reviews:

A fantastically moody, unsettling novel, with a teasing, enigmatic atmosphere entirely its own - Sarah Waters

Intensely lyrical and powerfully haunting, Mary is an original take on an origin story of one of Britain's most beloved and troubled writers. Sublime storytelling, and Gothic fiction at its very best! - Susan Stokes-Chapman, author of Pandora