Poor Creatures

The brilliant, fictionalised story of Mary Shelley and the birth of Frankenstein.

She did not mean to.
But she has killed, and killed, and killed again.

Dundee, 1812. Isabel Baxter awaits the arrival of Mary Godwin, a girl of precocious intellect and grand passions, sent north to cure an ailment no one understands. Nestled in woodland on the banks of the Tay, the Baxter family estate seems a perfect place for a troubled girl to recuperate. But The Cottage is a place of secrets, memories… and monsters.

Haunted by sickness and loss, Mary steps with Isabel into a shared fantasy world of intrigue and desire. As the fiction weaves its web about them, the two girls begin to lose their interest in reality – with far-ranging consequences for the lives of more than themselves…

The tale of the birth of Frankenstein has fascinated for centuries. Poor Creatures imagines the birth of Mary Shelley the writer – and the devastating effects on the circle about her.