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A sapphic reimagining of Mary Shelley's youth, vividly exploring
innocence, young love, gothic mystery and the roots of her literary
masterpiece, Frankenstein. Switzerland, 1816. A volcanic eruption
in Indonesia envelopes the whole of Europe in ash and cloud. Amid
this "year without a summer," eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley and
her lover Percy Bysshe Shelley arrive at Lake Geneva to visit Lord
Byron and his companion John Polidori. Anguished by the recent loss
of her child, Mary spends her days in strife. But come nightfall,
the friends while away rainy wine-soaked evenings gathered around
the fireplace, exchanging stories. One famous evening, Byron issues
a challenge to write the best ghost story. Contemplating what to
write, Mary recalls another summer, when she was fourteen...
Scotland, 1812. A guest of the Baxter family, Mary arrives in
Dundee, befriending young Isabella Baxter. The girls soon spend
hours together wandering through fields and forests, concocting
tales about mythical Scottish creatures, ghosts and monsters
roaming the lowlands. As their bond deepens, Mary and Isabella's
feelings for each other intensify. But someone has been watching
them--the charismatic and vaguely sinister Mr. Booth, Isabella's
older brother-in-law, who may not be as benevolent as he purports
to be... With gripping mastery and verve, Anne Eekhout brings to
life a defining moment in Mary Shelley's youth: the creative
wellspring for one of the most original, thrilling, and timeless
pieces of literature ever written. Provocative, wonderfully
atmospheric and pulsing with emotion, Mary and the Birth of
Frankenstein is a hypnotic ode to the power of imagination.
Translated from the Dutch by Laura Watkinson
Gothic, fantasy-tinged historical fiction, delving back into the
teenage years of Mary Shelley to find the inspiration for
Frankenstein 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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