The Year Without a Summer and the Monster It Birthed
In 1816, an Indonesian volcano's ash dimmed the sun over Europe, killing crops and trapping a group of writers indoors by a Swiss lake. Out of that cold, dark summer came Frankenstein and the modern vampire myth. This is the story of how one eruption on the far side of the world rewrote both agriculture and horror fiction.
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Mount Tambora's eighteen fifteen eruption released a sulfate veil that dropped global temperatures by nearly one degree.
New England experienced heavy frost and accumulating snow during the summer of eighteen sixteen.
Rotting grain harvests in Europe caused the nineteenth century's worst famine and widespread food riots.
Skyrocketing oat prices decimated transportation systems by making it too expensive to feed horses.
Mary Shelley conceived Frankenstein while trapped indoors by the volcanic winter's relentless rain and gloom.
John Polidori created the first modern aristocratic vampire as a response to the global climate collapse.
- 01Intro1 min
- 02The Indonesian Trigger3 min
- 03A World in Crisis3 min
- 04The Crucible at Villa Diodati3 min
- 05Outro1 min
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- The Haunted Summer of 1816 and the Origin of Frankenstein
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- Frankenstein, The Vampyre, and the spirit of the humanities
- Villa Diodati
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