Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, Claire Clairmont, John Polidori, and the Year Without a Summer

“In 1815, Mount Tambora in Indonesia violently erupted, leading to global crop failures, low temps, and famine. The catastrophic environmental impacts however, also led to the birth of such Romantic and Gothic masterworks as The Vampyre by Lord Byron and John Polidori, Mont Blanc and Hymn to Intellectual Beauty by Percy Shelley, and most famously, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley (né. Wollstoncraft). During this haunted summer in Geneva, Mary was 18 with a young infant by Percy, who was 23. Byron was 28 and well regarded, but had also recently had all of his assets seized after a terrible divorce and was being accompanied by his physician, John. And Claire, Mary’s stepsister, was desperately in love with Byron and probably pregnant with his child at this point (even though he treated her callously). I really want to make a movie about their adventures, love, exploits, conflict, and friendship one day.”

“legend”