Mary Shelley and Dundee: Q&A with Dark Dundee
Find out more about the Frankenstein author's formative time in the city…
Guillermo del Toro's adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is showing now at DCA – did you know that the author herself has a special link to Dundee?
We spoke to local history experts Louise and Stewart from Dark Dundee Tours, who told us all about Shelley's connection to the city, and how it may have inspired her greatest work…
Love this? Click over to the DD Tours website to check out walking tours, books and audio that uncover more offbeat Dundee history with some laughs – and chills – along the way.
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When did Mary Shelley live in Dundee?
Mary Shelley came to Dundee in 1812, when she was around 14 years old, and stayed for almost a year and a half, although she went home intermittently in that time.
She was sent here to live with the Baxter family who owned textile mills in Dundee (if you’ve heard of Baxter Park, you’ve heard of the Baxter family!) and who were wealthy friends of her father, William Godwin. She stayed at one of the Baxters’ homes known as ‘The Cottage’, but really it was a fancy mansion house on Broughty Ferry Road, the site is now South Baffin Street.
Was she inspired by the city?
Dundee gave her something she didn’t have in London: space, freedom, and a dramatic landscape that fuelled her imagination. In her own writings, she describes watching violent storms roll in over the Tay and climbing to the top of Dundee Law to gaze over the city and river. Those scenes of isolation, awe and nature’s fury are themes that run right through Frankenstein.
Mary spent much of her time in Dundee reading and writing, and later recalled:
It was beneath the trees of the grounds belonging to our house, or on the bleak sides of the woodless mountains near, that my true compositions of the airy flights of my imagination were born and fostered.
From The Cottage, Mary would have seen straight out toward Dundee’s bustling harbour, and in the early 1800s, it was a busy and brutal place. Dundee’s wealth was built on whaling, and it wasn’t a pretty trade. The air was thick with the smell of oil and decay, and the quaysides piled high with the remains of whales, seals and other Arctic creatures brought back by the ships. It wasn’t for the faint-hearted, and the stench alone could probably raise the dead.
While there’s no direct evidence that the sight of Dundee’s whaling ships inspired the creature itself, it’s not hard to imagine how the sights, smells, and sounds of death and dissection might have stirred something in a teenage girl already fascinated by science and the boundaries of life and death.
Is it possible to see where Shelley lived?
If you fancy walking in her footsteps, head for South Baffin Street, where The Cottage once stood. There’s a plaque marking the site, and nearby, a set of steep steps, known locally as the Frankenstein Steps.
You can also visit the Law (she wrote about climbing it during her time here ), and from the summit you’ll get the same sweeping views that she once described. It’s easy to see how the brooding skies and dark waters helped spark one of the greatest Gothic tales ever written.
Thank you Louise and Stewart from Dark Dundee Tours for this fascinating peek into Mary Shelley's Dundee!
Frankenstein is showing at DCA Cinema now – catch it on the big screen while you can…
