Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein

“A beautiful, hallucinatory dream of a novel, Anne Eekhout’s Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein brings Mary Shelley back to life with a brilliant intensity. This is a marvelous book about desire, and love, and the dark mysteries of the creative act.” - J.M. Miro, author of the National Bestseller Ordinary Monsters“A moody and evocative reveal of the backstory (behind the backstory) of Mary Shelley’s masterpiece, Frankenstein… . A creative confirmation of Shelley’s position as the mother of all goth girls.” - Kirkus Reviews“A compelling and sensitive deep-dive into Mary Shelley’s brilliant mind, in the formative years directly before she wrote Frankenstein. Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein reveals the rich inner life of one of the world’s greatest creative imaginations.” - Sara Sheridan, author of The Fair Botanists“Eekhout’s Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein … offers a bold new framing for questions about where we draw lines: between queerness and heterosexuality, the natural and the unnatural, and the imaginary and the real… . The narrative unfolds in hypnotic language steeped in fantasy and allusion, poetically translated from the Dutch by Laura Watkinson.” - The New Yorker“A fantastically moody, unsettling novel, with a teasing, enigmatic atmosphere entirely its own.” - Sarah Waters, New York Times bestselling author of The Paying Guests and Fingersmith“A novel that tiptoes and whispers, woos and caresses like the darkest of fairytales. Laudanum and love, wild imaginations and haunted hearts; I was bewitched by this profound and pleasurable imagining of Mary Shelley and the Birth of Frankenstein.” - Joanne Burn, author of The Hemlock Cure“Rich, intricate and beguiling, this is a novel of enormous insight, great heart and incredible skill. Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein has so much to tell us about grief, fear, love and imagination. I will return to it often.” - Nell Stevens, author of Briefly, A Delicious Life“Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein will appeal to all fans of Mary Shelley and stands equally strong as a fine piece of historical fiction.” - Bookreporter.com“Intensely lyrical and powerfully haunting… Sublime storytelling and Gothic fiction at its very best!” - Susan Stokes-Chapman, Author of Pandora“A literary creation story as bold, terrifying, and riveting as Frankenstein itself.” - Laurie Lico Albanese, Author of Hester“Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein is 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“Passionate, brooding, and alive!” - CBS Sunday Morning

Anne Eekhout is the author of the novels Dogma, which was nominated for the Bronzen Uil Prize for best debut; One Night, which was nominated for the BNG Literature Prize; and Nicolas and the Disappearance of the World, which was selected as the Best Book for Young Adults. She lives in the Netherlands.