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The summer of 1816 was meant to be a holiday. It became the birthplace of modern horror.
Trapped indoors by weeks of relentless rain near Lake Geneva, a group of four brilliant minds: Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Godwin (later Shelley), and John Polidori, amused themselves by reading German ghost stories. Challenged by Byron to each write a tale of the supernatural, their creative contest unlocked a darkness that would change literature forever.
This collection captures the complete, chilling literary output of that legendary gathering at the Villa Diodati:
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstone Shelley: The seminal masterpiece of an ambitious scientist, Victor Frankenstein, whose attempt to usurp the power of creation results in a tragic, terrifying monster.
The Vampyre by John Polidori: The first modern vampire story in English, introducing the cold, aristocratic, and seductive Lord Ruthven--the prototype for the vampire as a sophisticated predator.
A Fragment of a Novel by Lord Byron: Byron's initial, unfinished prose fragment that directly inspired Polidori's The Vampyre.
Fragment of a Ghost Story by Percy Bysshe Shelley: A tantalising, haunting glimpse into the poet's own attempt at a tale of the macabre.
Explore the stories born in the shadow of a volcanic winter, where a game of imagination spiraled into an obsession with life, death, and the monstrous ambition of man.
A propos de l'auteur
Mary Shelley, born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (1797-1851), was the daughter of philosopher and political writer William Godwin and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft (The Vindication of the Rights of Woman). Mary Shelley had a painful and turbulent life. Her mother died shortly after giving birth. Mary ran away with poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, a married student of her father's, which resulted in alienation from her family and scandal. The couple traveled throughout Europe and lost their first child in 1815. Then, Mary's half-sister committed suicide, followed shortly thereafter by Percy's wife Harriett. This unfortunate circumstance allowed Percy and Mary to be wed in 1816.
Percy Shelley drowned while sailing in 1822, leaving Mary as a young widow and mother. Mary Shelley is renowned for Frankenstein, but she also wrote additional novels, working to support her son and keeping her husband's legacy alive. She died of brain cancer in 1851.
