Mary Shelley and Frankenstein 31 Days of Halloween Day 9

3 days ago

1 min read

31 Days of Halloween with the

Hudson Valley Witches

Day 9

Carolyn, Shannon, and Helen are posting today. We co-own The Witch's Tavern in Rhinebeck, NY. One of our favorite horror characters is Frankenstein. He was very misunderstood and didn't choose to be created, but created he was. We are also obsessed with Mary Shelley, the author, so we are featuring her today.

Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein. From Britanicca.com:

The “haunted summer” of 1816 and the seeds of Frankenstein.

That summer was unusually cold and stormy, perhaps as a result of the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in what is now Indonesia, and came to be known as the “year without a summer”—or, in English literature and popular culture, the “haunted summer.” It was especially fruitful for the writers who were frequent guests at Villa Diodati, a mansion in Cologny (near Geneva) that Byron had leased. There he challenged his guests to a ghost story contest, which proved to be the genesis for a soon-to-be masterpiece, Frankenstein.