“Frankenstein” comes to Newburgh!!

Of all the famous people to visit Newburgh through the ages, Mary Shelley is probably one of the less well-recognised names. And yet the book she wrote is one of the most instantly recognised – ‘Frankenstein’. What’s more, she wrote it when she was only 18; and her visit to Newburgh took place in 1812 when she was 14 or 15. Was she influenced by her experiences here?

Her correct name at the time of her visit to Newburgh was MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN. ‘Shelley’ came later, when she married the poet. Her mother was Mary Wollstonecraft, a radical feminist of her day, a feisty woman who did not allow the rigid social and moral customs of the time to hold her back. She was clever and educated, and lived through a time of huge world turbulence – the French Revolution, in all its bloodiness, and the American War of Independence both took place in her time. In response to the seminal ‘Rights of Man’ (1781) by Thomas Paine, she penned ‘The Rights of Women’. Her contemporary, Robert Burns, acknowledged her work and wrote his own (much less radical) verse on women’s rights.

Mary Wollstonecraft died soon after giving birth to her daughter Mary. Young Mary Godwin seems to have led an unhappy childhood. Her father remarried, and she didn’t get on with her stepmother. When she was 14, and suffering from various ailments, her father put her on the mail packet Osnaburgh (a sailing ship) from Ramsgate to Dundee, a six-day journey, to stay with his friends the Baxters.

Young Mary had never met the Baxters, and it must have been scary time for her. However she soon fell in love with the whole Baxter family and their warm and welcoming ways. Baxter, like her father, was a radical, and his teenage daughters became close friends. Their oldest sister Margaret was married to  David Booth, who lived at Barns of Woodhouse in Newburgh. They brought Mary to visit here.

After returning to London, Mary ran off with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and led a life of apparent romance and intrigue for a few years – although she suffered the loss of her first child, and continued to have many griefs to bear. Famously, one night during a thunderstorm in Italy, Lord Byron challenged her, Shelley, and another writer to write a ghost story. Mary was overwhelmed by the fame of Byron and Shelley but persevered, and produced ‘Frankenstein’ – a story of a scientist who created a living human being. Her publisher would not believe that a mere woman could write such a book, and only agreed to publish it in her husband’s name. However, after its early success her father paid for it to be published in her own name.

In the book, Frankenstein’s monster travels through wild and remote countryside, searching for refuge. Many scholars believe Mary Shelley’s experiences in Scotland made a huge impact on her and that she based these scenes on her time here. Newburgh played a part in that experience.

Our scarecrow this year is ‘Frankenstein’, in memory of the famous woman who once visited here.