Mary’s secret

The story is well known. One wet summer by the shores of Lake Geneva, Mary Shelley — 18 years old, living out of wedlock with the poet Shelley — had a horrifying dream, one that she would later write as the novel Frankenstein. What is less well known is that another of the key pillars of modern horror fiction — the vampire myth — was born during that same extraordinary holiday.

Shelley and Mary had taken lodgings near Lord Byron, recently escaped from England following the scandal of his divorce, and — many speculate — incestuous affair with his half-sister. Accompanying him was his handsome and neurotic doctor, Polidori. In Shelley’s party was Mary’s half sister Claire, already pregnant by Byron and desperate to see him again.

The rain meant they were shut in together for days, talking incessantly of philosophy, medicine, and the latest developments in science; conversations drunk in by the awe-struck Mary.