How Dundee helped inspire Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Dundee.

Why do you go there?

I went to Dundee in November last year. It was the very first time I set foot there, although in my mind, I had been there a thousand times. I am a novelist, and my latest novel Mary: or, the birth of Frankenstein, is set partly in Dundee.

How often do you go?

Of course I wanted to go to do research, but then Covid struck and it was impossible. When the pandemic subsided, the novel was already finished. Luckily, I finally got to go to promote the book. I hope to visit again, soon, hopefully within the next year.

How did you discover it?

In researching the book, Dundee played an integral part. I knew that Mary Shelley spent a few months there, twice, when she was a teenager. That she stayed with the Baxter family and that Dundee was tremendously important to her and to the writing of Frankenstein, four years later.

Anne Eekhout (Image: Keke Keukelaar)

What’s your favourite memory?

Definitely the Frankenstein Steps at South Baffin Street. This is a staircase with a plaque on it in memory of the Baxter’s cottage that once stood there, and where Mary stayed. The stairs are very steep, a bit spooky and gothic. Perfect.

Who do you take?

My husband, a writer himself, who is a big fan of my work, and also very interested in Mary Shelley.

What do you take?

My sense of wonder and imagination. It is stunning to realise that Mary walked where I now walk, that she saw some of the same things I now see. It heightens our connection. In my mind, anyway.

What do you leave behind?

Hopefully a good novel. Last time I left a good deal of signed copies in several bookshops. Now the novel is out in paperback, I hope lots of other people will pick up a copy and enjoy this hybrid of fact and fiction.

Sum it up in a few words.

Mysterious, historic, atmospheric, industrial (at the big harbour) and welcoming.

Anne Eekhout's novel, Mary (Image: free)

What other travel spot is on your wish list?

Last spring I went to Cologny in Geneva, Switzerland, where the other part of Mary is set. In Villa Diodati, at the shore of Lake Geneva, Mary visited Lord Byron and John Polidori together with her husband Percy Shelley.

This is the place where she began writing Frankenstein. The villa is private property, but you can see the exterior from a field called Byron’s Meadow adjacent to it.

I wish to visit the house, once. To touch the walls of the rooms in which those famous writers lived and talked and worked. That would be fantastic.

Mary: or, the Birth of Frankenstein by Anne Eekhout (Pushkin Press, £9.99) is out now in paperback and is currently Waterstones Scottish Book of the Month