Frankenstein Exists Because of a Volcano

Frankenstein was written by a teenager, on a holiday ruined by a volcano. Mary Shelley lost her mother at birth, ran away at sixteen, and in the Year Without a Summer, stuck indoors on Lake Geneva with Lord Byron, she dreamed up the most famous monster in the world. And almost everything we picture about him, the flat head, the bolts, the lightning, even his name, is not in the book. This is the real story behind Frankenstein. Chapters: 0:00 Intro 0:40 The Girl At The Grave 2:13 The Volcano 3:49 The Contest 5:41 The Book 7:29 The Monster Escapes Sources: Mary Shelley's own 1831 introduction to Frankenstein and the 1818 novel (Project Gutenberg); the Wikipedia articles on Mary Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Claire Clairmont, Lord Byron, John Polidori, Villa Diodati, the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora, the Year Without a Summer, Luigi Galvani, Giovanni Aldini, Frankenstein, Presumption (1823) and Frankenstein (1931 film), with the sources they cite; Smithsonian Magazine on the Bodleian manuscript. Legends and disputed details are told as such. #Frankenstein #MaryShelley #History