This year is the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.* So it’s fitting to say a few words about it. (Thanks to K for a Twitter conversation earlier today that inspired this post!)
Mt. Tambora is a volcano in Indonesia. Our story begins in 1815, when it erupted so violently that the resulting cloud plunged the entire world into darkness. For a year.
Now, this doesn’t mean it was pitch-black all the time. But it does mean that crops all over the world died to frost in what came to be known as “The Year Without A Summer.” 1816 was also called “Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death.” With humanity powerless in the grip of inexplicable forces that decimated food supplies around the world, it’s not really surprising that the horror genre received a shot in the arm.
Mary Godwin (later Mary Shelley) was chilling** with her homies: Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and John Polidori. A storm trapped them indoors, and Lord Byron read them ghost stories.*** This inspired them to all try to come up with their own horror stories. Mary’s, of course, became Frankenstein, published two years later. And there’s no need (or space here!) to explore the massive impact it had on stories and, later, film. Besides the obvious “Frankenstein” figures like Boris Karlof’s, Shelley’s work influenced narratives of zombies and even robots.
Oh, and the other authors present? Percy didn’t compose anything of note that night, but since he’s Percy Bysshe Shelley that’s probably the only night of his life in which he didn’t.**** Lord Byron wrote “The Darkness”, the kind of poem you recite when you really want to kill the mood. And John Polidori?
John Polidori wrote The Vampyre, the first modern vampire romance. Which launched the vampire romance genre that includes heavyweights like Twilight! And by extension Twilight‘s bastard offspring, Fifty Shades. A dubious honor if ever there was one.
That’s right: Veggietales’ Christian cartoon Where’s God when I’m scared? and every blockbuster addition to the porno Fifty Shades franchise both owe their existence to an Indonesian volcano exploding 203 years ago.
Notes
* Or strictly speaking, the first version of the book. A heavily revised edition was published in 1831—on Halloween, of all days. If you ever have the misfortune to be bored at a gathering of Gothic novel specialists, loudly ask which edition of Frankenstein is more “authentic”. It’s sure to spice up the evening.
** See what I did there? B-)
*** Which is twice as creepy, because Byron.
**** There’s also evidence that he had a strong hand in guiding Mary Godwin (Shelley)’s writing of Frankenstein. Some have argued therefore that he should be considered the primary author of the book, or at least her co-author. To which I say, “Way to turn back the clock on women to the 19th century!” Guiding a less-experienced author makes you a mentor and editor, not the friggin’ co-author.