Synopses & Reviews
The weather went from being beautiful to tempestuous: torrential thunderstorms plagued the Shelleys, Byron and Polidori. The weather along with the company and the eerie ambiance of the locale contributed to the genesis of Frankenstein, Polidori's "The Vampyre," and, in all likelihood, modern weird fiction. On the night of June 16th, the group read aloud a collection of German ghost stories, The Fantasmagoriana. This inspired Byron to challenge the group to write a ghost story. Shelley wrote an forgettable story; Byron wrote a story fragment; and Polidori began the "The Vampyre," the first modern vampire tale.