1816 was The Year Without a Summer, also known as Eighteen hundred and froze to death. During its snowy summer ( and I mean snowy summer! ) Mary Shelley and her lover Percy Bysshe Shelley visited Lord Byron at his villa by Lake Geneva in Switzerland. It was the "wet, ungenial summer" that forced the Shelleys and their friends to spend their Swiss holiday indoors. I guess they were getting kind of bored ;) so they entertained themselves by reading ghost stories. To refreshen the atmosphere Byron challenged the Shelleys and his physician Polidori to each compose a story, to see who could write the scariest tale.
Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein,
Byron wrote a fragment based on Balkanic vampire legends,
Polidori wrote The Vampyre (the first vampire story published in English)
and Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote his wife's novel preface. :))
Polidori based his principal character on Byron and named him "Lord Ruthven" as a joke. Not sure it was a good joke, as Polidori was soon dismissed.
It's not that obvious who's behind Mary Shelley's monster. I have a suspect. Let me give you a few clues:
In 1814 Mary and Percy Shelley eloped to France. Upon their return, Percy, who was an advocate of free love, invited his wife to join his new household. Just as their sister :))
Being commited to free love, Percy Shelley believed that his community of friends should share everything: ideas, books, wifes, etc... He urged Mary to share her favours with his best friend, although she felt no attraction for him. He also might have had a relation with Mary's step-sister. Mary had asked Percy to send her step-sister away from their household, but he refused to change the manner in which he conceived his community to be organised. Yay, free love !!!!
Percy left Mary to nurse their sickly child on her own, while he entertained her step-sister Claire. When the child died, he went on entertaining Claire...
Unintentionally Percy even contributed to the death of their second daughter by ordering Mary to travel with the sick child in the Italian summer heat.
More clues?
If you actually read all the way to the end, then it is time to say THANK YOU!
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5 comments:
ah. an interesting theory.
that guy does sound like a monster. grrr.
The novel offers a critique of Romantic aspirations...and I believe that Mary Shelley had a particular Romantic in mind: Percy Shelley.
I loved the novel, do read it if you've got the time and you haven't done it by now.
i just finished one (well, not a classic) called "life after god". add that to ze list of books your friends tell you to read.
hey, when are you going to post more music on here, by the way? you can figure out a lot about a person by the music/books they like.
but i could be wrong.
also, The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. add those ;).
Thanks Adam! I've added them to my list! "The Kite Runner" was already on the list as a good friend already recommended it;
More music to come!
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