Short read: Victor Frankenstein, what have you wrought? And Mary Shelley, what have you wrought? That unorthodox scientific experiment, the hideous sapient creature it brought forth… For over 200 years now it’s stalked us, haunted our dreams… And to think, this little known London neighbourhood was the petri dish that…
Long read: Mary Wollstonecraft, the great early feminist, lived in Somers Town. And died there – died shaking with a fever soon after her daughter was born. That daughter was the great early novelist, Mary Shelley. This walk explores the Somers Town they knew – a place of poverty and political exiles and refugees and revolutionaries. We’ll see where she lived, a home Wollstonecraft set up on radical principles with the anarchist William Godwin in the Polygon, itself a radical housing scheme. We’ll visit the secret graveside spot where that philanderer Percy Bysshe Shelley used to wait for his 16-year-old lover Mary. Two centuries after Frankenstein’s monster first appeared we’ll track down – and get the measure of – some of the influences which shaped that most enduring and compelling of characters from English literature.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT & MARY SHELLEY IN SOMERS TOWN – THE PRACTICALS
Mary Wollstonecraft & Mary Shelley in Somers Town takes place at 2.30 pm on Saturday, May 21.
To go on the Mary Wollstonecraft & Mary Shelley in Somers Town walk meet Charlie in the ticket hall of Euston Underground Station.
MEET YOUR GUIDE
Here’s a podcast in which Charlie tells us a bit about himself, his career, his guiding, his London.
LONDON WALKS REVIEWS
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LONDON WALKS PRIVATE WALKS
If you can’t make one of the regularly scheduled, just-turn-up, public Mary Wollstonecraft & Mary Shelley in Somers Town walks do think about booking one as a private tour. If you go private you can have the Mary Wollstonecraft & Mary Shelley in Somers Town – or any other London Walk – on a day and at a time that suits your convenience. We’ll tailor it to your requirements. Ring Fiona or Noel or Mary on 020 7624 3978 or email us at [email protected] and we’ll set it up and make it happen for you. A private London Walk – they’re good value for an individual or couple and sensational value for a group – makes an ideal group or educational or birthday party or office (team-building) or club outing.
GIVE THE GIFT OF LONDON WALKS
A private London Walk makes a wonderful and unusual gift – be it a birthday or anniversary or Christmas present or whatever. Merchandise schmerchandise (gift wrapped or not) – but giving someone an experience, now that’s special. Memories make us rich.
Sam A –
I had read a biography of Mary Shelley and this tour combined the past and the present, adding context to my understanding. Much of the past from Shelley’s life has been built over and disappeared but it was interesting to imagine the past in the current housing estate. A highlight of the tour was visiting a magnificent but hidden-away community mural which references in imagery, Mary and Percy Shelley and Frankenstein.