NOTES

the Irish

Improbably, Victor has floated some hundreds of miles. Moreover, as we discover in the next chapter he is not the only one who has traversed the open seas southwest of the Orkneys to land on the northeast coast of Ireland. Although it has been suggested that including Ireland in the expansive geographical range of the novel may be Mary Shelley's means of honoring her mother, who served as a governess there, the strangeness of this repositioning of setting has never been adequately accounted for.

From Victor's reference to "a line of high land" (III:3:26), we may suppose that Mary Shelley has in mind geological features like the Giant's Causeway, a line of huge islets, or the cliffs of Fair Head.