The year 1816 was “The Year Without a Summer”. In April, 1815, one of the largest volcanic eruptions in history occurred. Mount Tambora is a stratovolcano located in present-day Indonesia. At the time, the region was called the Dutch East Indies. As the volcano violently erupted, it spewed large amounts of ash into the atmosphere. The result was global cooling, crop failures, famine, and a frigid and dismal summer of 1816. This background served as the setting for one of the greatest gatherings of English writers.
Lord Byron was the greatest of the English writers at the time, and certainly the most famous. The equivalent of a modern day rock star, Byron’s fame was matched only by his notoriety. Lord Byron fled from England in April, 1816. His wife had recently given birth to their only child, a daughter, Ada. However English society talked openly of rumors that he had an affair with his half-sister, among many others. He deserted England, returning only in death.
Meanwhile, others also created a bit of scandal for themselves, leaving much for English society to discuss over tea. Percy Bysshe Shelley, a young poet who was expelled from Oxford for his radical views, fled England, leaving behind his wife and child. Yet Percy did not flee into the night alone. Rather, he brought along two teenage girls: Mary Godwin and her step-sister, Claire Clairmont. Rumor had it that he was having an affair with both of them. Claire wasn’t intrested in Shelley though. She was stalking the lover who spurned her: Lord Byron. While Byron did not want to see Claire, he enjoyed the company of Shelley. Shelley and Byron developed a friendship in Geneva that would last the rest of their lives: a tragic six years.
In Geneva, the weather remained disagreeable much of the time. As Mary Shelley wrote “It proved a wet, ungenial summer, and incessant rain often confined us for days to the house.” To pass the time, they began to share ghost stories. In Mary Shelley’s famous introduction to Frankenstein, she shared the story of how the novel came about:
“‘We will each write a ghost story,’ said Lord Byron, and his proposition was acceded to.” Byron, Shelley, Byron’s physician, Dr. John Polidori, and Mary were the four who took up the challenge. Mary’s beginnings proved daunting for her. “I busied myself to think of a story,” she wrote. However, she struggled. “‘Have you thought of a story?’ I was asked each morning, and each morning I was forced to reply with a mortifying negative.”
One night, she could not sleep. Suddenly, she saw a vision. “I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion.”
The story of Frankenstein had been born.
Chasing Shelley 