ìElsewhere in Europe, weather was steadily gloomy and rainy.
On the shore of Lake Geneva in Switzerland, in June of 1816,
foul weather trapped four travellers from England--Mary Shelley,
her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley; Lord Byron; and Byronís
physician and hanger-on, John Polidori. ëIncessant rain,í Mary
Shelley wrote, ëoften confined us to the house for days.í Finally,
bored, they agreed to each try to write a ghost story. Two years
later, Mary Shelley [at the age of 19] published hers. Frankenstein
is yet another legacy of the year that had no summer.î Michael
Sims, 1997, Darwinís Orchestra: An Almanac of Nature in
History and the Arts (NY: Henry Holt), page 194.
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