Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: Hi, this is Danish Schwartz. Just a quick message if
Speaker 2: you want to support Noble Blood. We have a Patreon.
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Speaker 2: watching through the CW series Rain. We also have Noble
Speaker 2: Blood merch at DFTBA dot com, and I have a
Speaker 2: book that's out that is all linked in the episode description.
Speaker 2: But of course the best possible support is just listening
Speaker 2: to the podcast, and you don't need to do any
Speaker 2: of that. In April eighteen fifteen, the world world bore
Speaker 2: witness to one of the most powerful volcanic eruptions in
Speaker 2: human history when Mount Tambora, centered on the Indonesian island Sumbawa, erupted.
Speaker 2: It sent debris, gas and lava to decimate the surrounding area,
Speaker 2: cloaking the island's inhabitants. In a two day long darkness.
Speaker 2: Tsunamis were triggered across the Java Sea and oceans of
Speaker 2: Ash tore through forest and grassland, an estimated ten thousand
Speaker 2: people were killed instantly. Tambora's impact was felt far and wide.
Speaker 2: By the next year, a massive dust cloud had formed
Speaker 2: in the atmosphere, which climate scientists now believe was partially
Speaker 2: responsible for a great chill that swept across the northern Hemisphere.
Speaker 2: It led to crop failure and famine, unrest, and migration.
Speaker 2: The period became known as the Year without a Summer,
Speaker 2: with Europe covered in fog and frost even through the
Speaker 2: typically warmer months. Take a description of the weather in Geneva, Switzerland,
Speaker 2: on May seventeenth quote. The spring, as the inhabitants informed us,
Speaker 2: was unusually late, and indeed the cold was excessive. As
Speaker 2: we ascended the mountains, the same clouds which rained on
Speaker 2: us in the valleys poured forth large flakes of snow,
Speaker 2: thick and fast. The sun occasionally shone through these showers
Speaker 2: and illuminated the magnificent ravines of the mountains, whose gigantic
Speaker 2: pines were some laden with snow, some wreathed round by
Speaker 2: the lines of scattered and lingering vapor. Others darted their
Speaker 2: dark spires into the sunny sky, brilliantly clear and azure.
Speaker 2: These are the words of the young Merry Wollstonecraft Godwin
Speaker 2: as she documented her journey to Geneva alongside her soon
Speaker 2: to be husband, the poet Percy Shelley, their four month
Speaker 2: old son William, and Mary's stepsister Claire Claremont. Also finding
Speaker 2: his way to Geneva was Claire's former flame, Lord Byron,
Speaker 2: England's most scandalous celebrity of the moment, whose trip to
Speaker 2: the country was less vacation and more of an escape
Speaker 2: from the increasingly scornful public eye. Traveling with Byron was
Speaker 2: his personal physician, John Polidori, who had literary aspirations of
Speaker 2: his own. Shelley and Byron were already fans of each
Speaker 2: other's work, so when the two parties crossed paths at
Speaker 2: the hands of a still love sick Claire, who was
Speaker 2: the one who casually suggested Geneva in the first place,
Speaker 2: it seemed only natural that they would rent accommodations near
Speaker 2: each other. The Shelley crew, not particularly well off, ran
Speaker 2: into a modest house called the Maisson Chapuis, located just
Speaker 2: below a rather lavish mansion rented by Byron Villa Diodati.
Speaker 2: For days on end, the unseasonable rain was relentless, and
Speaker 2: the entire group was forced to spend much of their
Speaker 2: time together inside the villa. Their nights were spent discussing
Speaker 2: literary projects and debating philosophy. One of their favorite topics
Speaker 2: was whether or not human corpses could be re animated.
Speaker 2: Mary later described herself as a devout but nearly silent
Speaker 2: listener of those debates between the men. At some point,
Speaker 2: Byron proposed a competition to pass the time. Everyone was
Speaker 2: to try to come up with their own ghost story.
Speaker 2: From a contest among a reigned in group of romantics,
Speaker 2: two new Gothic horror genres were born from the ashes
Speaker 2: of Tambora wrote Monsters. I'm Danas Schwartz and this is
Speaker 2: noble blood. First things first, let's establish the players at
Speaker 2: Villa Diodati that summer. Let's start with George Byron. Where
Speaker 2: we meet George Gordon Byron, the sixth Baron Byron in
Speaker 2: our story, is not a particularly high point in his life.
Speaker 2: Close friends would say that he was leaving England of
Speaker 2: his own volition. According to the Baron John cam Hobhouse quote,
Speaker 2: there was not the slightest necessity, even in appearance, for
Speaker 2: his going abroad those who weren't close friends would tell
Speaker 2: a very different tale. The eighteen twelve publication of his
Speaker 2: poem Child Harold's Pilgrimage made Byron a nearly instant literary celebrity.
Speaker 2: He was the darling of London society, of fixture at
Speaker 2: their parties and in the hearts and minds of women.
Speaker 2: He was incredibly vain, likely fueled by his insecurities about
Speaker 2: his clubbed right foot, and he acted as incredibly vain
Speaker 2: men do. Despite his fame and title, Byron was not
Speaker 2: born well off. His father, the former British officer nicknamed
Speaker 2: mad Jack. Byron, had only married his mother from her money,
Speaker 2: and he squandered it all away quite quickly. Mad Jack
Speaker 2: then abandoned his wife and young son to fend for themselves.
Speaker 2: After his uncle died without an heir, Byron inherited his
Speaker 2: minor title of baron and all that came with it.
Speaker 2: But it was Byron's poetry that truly allowed him to
Speaker 2: gain access to society. A reputation came with his status mad,
Speaker 2: bad and dangerous to know. In the words of Caroline Lamb,
Speaker 2: noble Blood alumnus and one of Byron's most famous ex lovers,
Speaker 2: or take the words of writer Amelia Opie, another one
Speaker 2: of the women that Byron charmed, quote such a voice
Speaker 2: as the devil tempted Eve with you feared its fascination
Speaker 2: the moment you heard it. At this point, however, the
Speaker 2: gossip surrounding Byron went beyond hedonism and womanizing. Byron's January
Speaker 2: of eighteen fifteen marriage to Caroline Lamb's cousin Annabella, was
Speaker 2: doomed from the start. Feeling trapped in monogamy, he began
Speaker 2: to act out as Caroline predicted Byron quote would never
Speaker 2: be able to pull with a woman who went to church, punctually,
Speaker 2: understood statistics, and had a bad figure within his circle.
Speaker 2: He became less secretive of past homosexual affairs and spoken
Speaker 2: innuendos as to the nature of his relationship with his
Speaker 2: half sister Augusta. Just a year after they were wed,
Speaker 2: Annabella took the couple's infant daughter, Ada to her parents'
Speaker 2: home in Leicestershire. A few short weeks later, Annabella's father,
Speaker 2: Sir Ralph Milbank, wrote to Byron to formally request a separation.
Speaker 2: After that, rumors that had been contained within the Inno
Speaker 2: literary circle began to spread across the city. The flames
Speaker 2: of these wildfires were in some part fueled by Caroline herself,
Speaker 2: who famously wanted to see her ex lover burn marital violence, adultery, incest, sodomy.
Speaker 2: Byron's public image was becoming truly dangerous to know. Writing
Speaker 2: from London to Leicestershire, Augusta rather awkwardly informed her half
Speaker 2: sister in law of quote reports abroad of a nature
Speaker 2: too horrible to repeat. Every other sinks into nothing besides
Speaker 2: this most horrid one. In the same letter, Augusta quotes
Speaker 2: Byron's response to the rumors, or rather one of the rumors,
Speaker 2: quote even to have such a thing said is utter
Speaker 2: destruction and ruin to a man from which he can
Speaker 2: never recover. So which rumor was Byron referencing. It's worth
Speaker 2: noting at this point that many historians believe the incest
Speaker 2: rumors to be true, and that Elizabeth Medora Lee, Augusta's
Speaker 2: third daughter is still likely thought to be Byron's. Despite
Speaker 2: its taboo, incest was not a criminal offense in England
Speaker 2: at this point, so it's actually more likely that it
Speaker 2: was the sodomy accusations that ultimately dissuaded Byron from protesting
Speaker 2: his role in the divorce proceedings in court. Whether you
Speaker 2: believe Hobhouse that Byron was simply heading out for a vacation,
Speaker 2: or whether you're more inclined to believe the considerable evidence
Speaker 2: pointing to the contrary, the fact is that in April
Speaker 2: Byron left England, never to return. He ordered a carriage
Speaker 2: modeled after Napoleon's, which had been famously captured as the
Speaker 2: general fled Waterloo just the year before Byron's exile. It's
Speaker 2: not hard to imagine why Byron identified with Napoleon's indulgence
Speaker 2: and tragedy. As Byron once told a friend, quote with me,
Speaker 2: there is, as Napoleon said, but one step between the
Speaker 2: sublime and the ridiculous. Byron's traveling companion was his newly
Speaker 2: certified physician, twenty year old John Polidori. It's unknown why
Speaker 2: exactly Byron invited Polodori, despite protests from Hobhouse, but there
Speaker 2: are several good guesses as to why the doctor accepted,
Speaker 2: one being the offer of quote no less than a
Speaker 2: sum of five hundred pounds for an account of Byron's
Speaker 2: forthcoming tour from Byron's publisher, John Murray, Also on their
Speaker 2: way to Geneva, of course, were Mary and Percy Shelley.
Speaker 2: Mary wasn't technically a Shelley at this point. While the
Speaker 2: couple had eloped nearly two years earlier, they wouldn't wed
Speaker 2: until December eighteen sixteen, after Percy's first wife ultimately committed suicide. Yes,
Speaker 2: when the famous lovers met, the twenty one year old
Speaker 2: Percy was already married to another sixteen year old girl, Harriet,
Speaker 2: with whom he had fathered a child. Percy was a
Speaker 2: great fan of Mary's father, William Godwin, and he would
Speaker 2: join the family for dinner, eventually visiting nearly every day.
Speaker 2: Percy's anti Christian and pro free love views had drawn
Speaker 2: him to Godwin's famously anarchic works. At this point, young
Speaker 2: Percy had been kicked out of Oxford for his atheism
Speaker 2: and disowned by his wealthy father. He was living up
Speaker 2: to his childhood nickname Mad Shelley, given to him by
Speaker 2: Bullys at Eton College for his head in the cloud's attitude,
Speaker 2: his refusal to adhere to hazing traditions, and his sometimes
Speaker 2: violent bouts of anger. Shelley even claims his own father
Speaker 2: once tried to have him admitted to a mad house
Speaker 2: in Godwin, Percy sought both a mentor and a surrogate parent.
Speaker 2: Though Percy and Mary had actually met once before, uneventfully
Speaker 2: in eighteen twelve. When Percy came around again two years later,
Speaker 2: Mary was immediately smitten with his poems, his politics, and
Speaker 2: his quote wild intellectual, unearthly looks, as Percy's friend Thomas
Speaker 2: Jefferson Hogg had described them. Neither Godwin nor Mary's stepmother
Speaker 2: approved of the so Percy and Mary would often sneak
Speaker 2: off together, namely to a local churchyard, Saint Pancras Old Church.
Speaker 2: The churchyard was Mary's favorite spot, her retreat, where she
Speaker 2: spent an obsessive amount of time seeking peace and a
Speaker 2: connection with one woman buried there, her mother, the famous
Speaker 2: writer Mary Wollstonecraft. The Elder. Mary was one of the
Speaker 2: most prominent writers of her time and one of the
Speaker 2: most radical. Her seventeen ninety two treatise A Vindication of
Speaker 2: the Rights of Women is often considered the first English
Speaker 2: language feminist text. By the time Mary Wollstonecraft met Godwin,
Speaker 2: a fellow radical, she already had a daughter, Fanny, born
Speaker 2: from an affair with an American businessman, When Mary and
Speaker 2: Godwin got together and Mary became pregnant for the second time,
Speaker 2: they agreed that marriage would be best for the children,
Speaker 2: despite neither of them believing in the practice. Baby Mary
Speaker 2: was born healthy, but her mother suffered complications. It was
Speaker 2: ultimately the result of unhygienic medical practices that Mary Wollstonecraft
Speaker 2: would not live to raise her daughter. She died of
Speaker 2: a bacterial infection just eleven days after giving birth. Though
Speaker 2: Godwin did not resent the baby Mary for the death
Speaker 2: of his wife, she grew up knowing that she was
Speaker 2: somehow responsible for her mother's absence. Still, Godwin kept his
Speaker 2: late wife's presence in Mary's life. A portrait of her
Speaker 2: was hung above the stairs, where young Mary saw it
Speaker 2: every day, and her father would frequently take her to
Speaker 2: visit her mother's grave site at the same church where
Speaker 2: the late Mary and Godwin had been married not too
Speaker 2: long before. It said that young Mary learned how to
Speaker 2: write her own name from tracing the engraving on her
Speaker 2: mother's headstone. In the words of literary critic Sandra M. Gilbert,
Speaker 2: Mary's only real mother was a tombstone. As young Mary
Speaker 2: grew up, the grave became her place of solace, increasingly
Speaker 2: so after her father remarried. She would carry piles of
Speaker 2: books from her home and spend the day reading with
Speaker 2: her mother. Mary frequently re read her mother's own work,
Speaker 2: absorbing her knowledge, searching for it. In herself quote, I
Speaker 2: conceive it to be the duty of every rational creature
Speaker 2: to attend to its offspring, Wollstonecraft had written in Thoughts
Speaker 2: on the Education of Daughters in seventeen eighty seven. While
Speaker 2: Wollstonecraft was not able to attend to her own daughter,
Speaker 2: Mary would recreate her presence as best she could. Bringing
Speaker 2: Percy to the grave, then, was the ultimate vulnerability, the
Speaker 2: ultimate invitation into her prime world. On Sunday, June twenty sixth,
Speaker 2: eighteen fourteen, Mary brought Percy to the grave and declared
Speaker 2: her love. He reciprocated, and it's notoriously believed that they
Speaker 2: consummated the relationship then and there in the graveyard, an
Speaker 2: inspiration to future Goths everywhere. While the story seems almost
Speaker 2: too gothic to be true, we can assume that they
Speaker 2: did in fact sleep together for the first time that
Speaker 2: day in the graveyard or elsewhere, As Percy refers to
Speaker 2: the day in his journal entries as his true birthday.
Speaker 2: The couple eloped later that summer, to the disapproval of Godwin.
Speaker 2: He still opposed marriage despite his own and was concerned
Speaker 2: with Percy's increasing debt. Though he didn't outright disown Mary,
Speaker 2: the relationship between father and daughter became distant and cold
Speaker 2: after Mary left for France with her new quote unquote husband.
Speaker 2: When the couple ran out of money, a then pregnant
Speaker 2: Mary asked her father for assistance, he denied her. In
Speaker 2: February of eighteen fifteen, Mary gave birth prematurely to a daughter,
Speaker 2: who would die within a month. Mary was plunged into
Speaker 2: a deep depression and would consider herself haunted by the
Speaker 2: baby for years. Nonetheless, in January of the next year,
Speaker 2: she gave birth to a son and named him William,
Speaker 2: after her father. That summer, at the urging of her
Speaker 2: stepsister Claire, the Shelleys decided to follow Lord Byron on
Speaker 2: a trip to Geneva. Of note is the fact that
Speaker 2: Claire was pregnant with a child rumored at the time
Speaker 2: to actually be Percy's. There's no actual evidence of an
Speaker 2: affair between Claire and Percy, and we now know that
Speaker 2: the wild in fact belonged to another free loving poet,
Speaker 2: Lord Byron. Lake Geneva was an ideal spot for a
Speaker 2: romantic poet. It was surrounded by vineyards and hugged by
Speaker 2: the silhouette of the Alps snowy peaks in the distance.
Speaker 2: The crescent moon shaped body of water is the largest
Speaker 2: and deepest in Central Europe. Mary described it lavishly in
Speaker 2: her travel journal as quote blue as the heavens, which
Speaker 2: it reflects. During summers when there hasn't been recent volcanic activity,
Speaker 2: the lake is warm enough to swim in. Situated on
Speaker 2: top of a hill, overlooking those heavenly depths and the
Speaker 2: stretching vineyards is the stately salmon pink Villa Diodati. The
Speaker 2: villa still stands today, its exterior largely unchanged from the
Speaker 2: time of the group's day, from its teal shuttered windows
Speaker 2: to its expansive balcony. Though private owned, it's still a
Speaker 2: habit for literary tourists to try to catch a glimpse
Speaker 2: of the mansion from nearby walking ways. This is a
Speaker 2: tradition that began in eighteen sixteen, when hotels started to
Speaker 2: charge English tourists to spy on the villa from telescopes
Speaker 2: across the lake. That's how famous Byron and his friends
Speaker 2: were at the time. It said that people would sail
Speaker 2: by in boats hoping to peek at the women's underwear
Speaker 2: on the washing lines, or see anything to confirm that
Speaker 2: the villa was as debaucherous as it was in their imaginations.
Speaker 2: It was even deemed a quote league of incest at
Speaker 2: the time. Those words often attributed to the prominent poet
Speaker 2: Robert Southey. There's no actual evidence for the knightly orgies
Speaker 2: that were rumored to be happening there, and there was
Speaker 2: even an outright denial from Byron. Quote so much for
Speaker 2: scoundrels Southeast story of incest. Neither was there any promiscuous
Speaker 2: intercourse whatever. Both are an invention of the execrable villain Southey,
Speaker 2: whom I will term so publicly as he deserves end quote. Still,
Speaker 2: the group's entangled web of romantic and platonic connections to
Speaker 2: one another, combined with the presence of the eager voyeurs
Speaker 2: across the lake, would soon contribute to an environment of claustrophobia.
Speaker 2: Lest we forget, thanks to the weather, they were quite
Speaker 2: literally confined to the house. It proved a wet ungenial
Speaker 2: summer and incessant rain often confined us for days to
Speaker 2: the house. Mary would later describe. She recounted that during
Speaker 2: these periods, various philosophical doctrines were discussed, and among others,
Speaker 2: the nature of the principle of life and whether there
Speaker 2: was any probability of its ever being discovered and communicated
Speaker 2: to ground Byron and Percy's wild imaginations was the medical
Speaker 2: knowledge of Polodori, Who's due for a proper introduction in
Speaker 2: our story now. John Polodori had never intended to study medicine,
Speaker 2: but his father forced him to follow the track he
Speaker 2: envisioned for his son, and he had enrolled him in
Speaker 2: the University of Edinburgh to study the science. Though John
Speaker 2: never stood up to his father, He resented his rigidity,
Speaker 2: which likely played a part in his hatred for both
Speaker 2: medicine and school. Over the course of his reluctant education,
Speaker 2: Polodori discovered a passion for literature. Still, he dutifully finished
Speaker 2: his schooling and became a doctor at age twenty. At
Speaker 2: the time, however, in order to practice in London, a
Speaker 2: doctor had to be at least twenty six. It was
Speaker 2: during this waiting period that Polodori took the job of
Speaker 2: Byron's physician, which was offered thanks to a connection of
Speaker 2: his father. Their relationship was doomed from the start, each
Speaker 2: man self obsessed in his own way, but only one
Speaker 2: with the prestige to back it up and the current
Speaker 2: need for an emotional punching bag. At one of Byron's
Speaker 2: last dinners with friends in England, Polodori had asked his
Speaker 2: new employer if he could read a bit of a
Speaker 2: play he had written. Byron agreed, if only to have
Speaker 2: the opportunity to play the role of mean girl and
Speaker 2: skewer Polodori's efforts for the laughter of the table. In
Speaker 2: another exchange, the doctor had asked the poet, what is
Speaker 2: there accepting writing poetry that I cannot do better than you?
Speaker 2: Byron calmly replied, first, I can hit with a pistol
Speaker 2: the keyhole of that door. Secondly, I can swim across
Speaker 2: that river to yonder point, and thirdly I can give
Speaker 2: you a damned good thrashing. If you're feeling for Polodori
Speaker 2: right now, keep in mind that at least all of
Speaker 2: that would probably provide him with good material later on.
Speaker 2: Back to the villa. During one of those indoor stretches,
Speaker 2: the group began to read pieces from Phantasmagoriana, a French
Speaker 2: anthology of German ghost stories. It was this collection that
Speaker 2: gave Byron his famous idea, We will each write a
Speaker 2: ghost story, he said, as Mary later recounted. Namely excluded
Speaker 2: from each was Claire, who cared less about writing and
Speaker 2: more about a certain writer. While the contest was a
Speaker 2: fun way to pass the time, it was also a
Speaker 2: desperately needed distraction from the growing tensions mounting in the house.
Speaker 2: Claire was determined to make the trip worthwhile to resume
Speaker 2: her affair with Byron. Despite his initial resistance, Claire got
Speaker 2: what she came for. I never loved her, nor pretended
Speaker 2: to love her, Byron wrote, But a man is a man,
Speaker 2: and if a girl of eighteen comes prancing to you
Speaker 2: at all hours, there is but what way? Classic Byron.
Speaker 2: Some sources report that Paulodori became infatuated with Mary, who
Speaker 2: remained devoted to Percy and rejected his advances. As the
Speaker 2: doctor would recount, Mary instead saw Polidori as a brother. Percy, meanwhile,
Speaker 2: was described as falling into a depression. He struggled with
Speaker 2: mental illness from a young age, and the claustrophobic environment
Speaker 2: was beginning to weigh on his psyche. For example, one
Speaker 2: dark and stormy evening, Byron read verses from Samuel Taylor
Speaker 2: Coleridge's poem christabel in which a supernatural creature is disguising
Speaker 2: itself as a woman named Geraldine in order to trick
Speaker 2: the titular character. One particularly relevant section reads, behold her
Speaker 2: bosom and half her side, hideous, deformed, and pale of Hugh,
Speaker 2: A site to dream of, not to tell, and she
Speaker 2: is to sleep by Christabelle. Percy fled from the room,
Speaker 2: screaming in a fit of fantasy. As Byron described it,
Speaker 2: it was only when Polodori threw water in Percy's face
Speaker 2: and gave him ether, the anesthetic of the time, that
Speaker 2: he calmed down. They say Percy had been haunted by
Speaker 2: visions of a monstrous woman whom some accounts describe as
Speaker 2: Mary with eyes instead of nipples on her breasts. Clearly
Speaker 2: inspired enough, the guests began to write and share their
Speaker 2: ghost stories. Byron and Percy went first, both presenting the
Speaker 2: beginnings of works that they would never finish. Percy's story,
Speaker 2: which Mary remembered to have been inspired by his childhood,
Speaker 2: is now completely lost Byron's story. The fragment of a novel, however,
Speaker 2: can still be read in full. His story centered on
Speaker 2: a young man traveling in Turkey with an old companion,
Speaker 2: the wealthy aristocratic Augustus Darville. The elder's health declines rapidly,
Speaker 2: and while the two rest in a Turkish cemetery, Darvill
Speaker 2: asks his companion to tell no one of his impending death.
Speaker 2: The old man gives the younger a ring and asks
Speaker 2: him to perform a ceremony with it, before turning black
Speaker 2: and instantly disintegrating. The end, the doctor hadn't managed to
Speaker 2: come up with anything worthwhile, yet, Mary, later recalled poor Polidori,
Speaker 2: had some terrible idea about a skull headed lady who
Speaker 2: was so punished for peeping through a keyhole. Mary, for
Speaker 2: her part, early on, was struck with a serious case
Speaker 2: of writer's block. I was asked each morning and each evening,
Speaker 2: I was forced to reply with a mortifying negative, She wrote.
Speaker 2: Her devout but nearly silent listening to the scientific debates
Speaker 2: of the men would soon pay off, though, having made
Speaker 2: its way into her subconscious. One conversation in particular, had
Speaker 2: the greatest impact. They talked of the experiments of doctor Darwin,
Speaker 2: who preserved a piece of Vermicelli in a glass case
Speaker 2: till by some extraordinary means, it began to move with
Speaker 2: voluntary motion. Perhaps a corpse would be reanimated. Galvanism had
Speaker 2: given token of such things. Perhaps the component parts of
Speaker 2: a creature might be manufactured, brought together, and endowed with
Speaker 2: vital warmth. These images and ideas embedded themselves in her
Speaker 2: mind and birthed perhaps the most famous dream of all time.
Speaker 2: As Mary wrote, Knight waned upon this talk. When I
Speaker 2: placed my head upon my pillow, I did not sleep,
Speaker 2: nor could I be said to think. I saw, with
Speaker 2: shut eyes, but acute mental vision. I saw the pale
Speaker 2: student of unhallowed arts, kneeling beside the thing he had
Speaker 2: put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man
Speaker 2: stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine,
Speaker 2: showed signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half
Speaker 2: vital motion. By her account, it was right then and
Speaker 2: there after, opening her eyes in terror, that Mary Shelley
Speaker 2: began to draft Frankenstein. She recounts, I returned to my
Speaker 2: ghost story, my tiresome, unlucky ghost story. I have found it.
Speaker 2: What terrified me will terrify others. And I need only
Speaker 2: describe the specter which has haunted my midnight pillow on
Speaker 2: the morrow I announced that I had thought of a story.
Speaker 2: I began that day with the words. That night, Mary
Speaker 2: Shelley read a passage to the group that began. It
Speaker 2: was on a dreary night of November. As Frankenstein developed
Speaker 2: from ghost story to novel, Villa Diodatti remained in its
Speaker 2: DNA even beyond Victor Frankenstein's Geneva family origins and the
Speaker 2: number of scenes that take place at Lake Geneva itself.
Speaker 2: The year without a Summer feels present in her descriptions
Speaker 2: of the natural world that Victor and his creature experience.
Speaker 2: One of the very first sentences of the novel reads,
Speaker 2: this breeze, which has traveled from the regions towards which
Speaker 2: I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes.
Speaker 2: Inspired by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more
Speaker 2: fervent and vivid. I try, in vain to be persuaded
Speaker 2: that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation.
Speaker 2: It ever presents itself to my imagination as the region
Speaker 2: of beauty and delight the novel's protagonist, Victor Frankenstein's own
Speaker 2: scientific interest from watching a storm as a child. In Frankenstein,
Speaker 2: the natural world is as fear inspiring as it is
Speaker 2: awe inspiring. It's a perspective that feels timely given Mary
Speaker 2: writing in the wake of a catastrophic natural disaster. While
Speaker 2: many have come to the conclusion that Mary identifies with
Speaker 2: Victor the scientist, the circumstances surrounding that summer way heavily
Speaker 2: in favor of Mary actually identifying more with the monster.
Speaker 2: Remember the words of Mary's mother. I conceive it to
Speaker 2: be the duty of every rational creature to attend to
Speaker 2: its offspring. Mary's mother had died just days after she
Speaker 2: was born, and Mary had been all but abandoned by
Speaker 2: her beloved father because of her relationship with Percy. Like
Speaker 2: Frankenstein's Monster, Mary had become a lonely, wandering child, abandoned
Speaker 2: by her creator, her husband Byron Polodori. All of them
Speaker 2: were aching for the attention of their fathers. Perhaps it
Speaker 2: came up in conversation one night, and Mary had silently
Speaker 2: agreed to herself when it came to the conversations that
Speaker 2: we know took place. Mary's devout listening likely gave her
Speaker 2: not only source material but character inspiration. Each night, three men,
Speaker 2: all remembered in part for their egos, discussed reanimation of
Speaker 2: human life. Mary's character, Victor Frankenstein, who's torn down by
Speaker 2: his own hubris, is remembered for thinking that he could
Speaker 2: play god. Speaking of those men, the second most famous
Speaker 2: work to stem from Villadia, Dotti, was written not by Shelley,
Speaker 2: not by Byron, but by poor Polidori. He was intrigued
Speaker 2: by that unfinished piece of Byron's, and after the trip finished,
Speaker 2: he began to flush it out into a short story.
Speaker 2: Polodori's story begins to about the same as Byron's, two
Speaker 2: gentlemen traveling Europe, one dying of a serious death and
Speaker 2: making the other swear not to speak of it. In
Speaker 2: this version, however, we see the consequences of that deal,
Speaker 2: as our protagonist is shocked to find his dead friend
Speaker 2: alive and well in London and attempting to seduce his sister.
Speaker 2: There are some changes. Right off the bat, locals tell
Speaker 2: legends of vampires, and while our protagonist, Aubrey doesn't make
Speaker 2: the connection. Mysterious seemingly vampire induced deaths take place when
Speaker 2: his companion, the wealthy, charming and suave Lord Ruthven, arrives.
Speaker 2: If you remember the Caroline Lamb episode we did on
Speaker 2: this podcast, the name Ruthven might ring a bell. Maybe not.
Speaker 2: It was a very long time ago, you see. It's
Speaker 2: the same pseudonym Caroline Lamb used for the heartbreaker Mayle
Speaker 2: Lead in her novel Glenarvan, which was a fictional account
Speaker 2: of her affair with Byron. At an early point in
Speaker 2: Polodori's novel, the vampire Ruthven abandons Aubrey during their travels
Speaker 2: after seducing an acquaintance's daughter, Polodori often found himself abandoned
Speaker 2: by Byron in favor of Byron's new preferred companion, Percy Shelley.
Speaker 2: Ruthven is described as being deadly, pale, and dark haired.
Speaker 2: He has a compelling voice and is attractive to women
Speaker 2: whom he sees as prey. It's not hard to imagine
Speaker 2: why Polodori saw Byron as a vampire plagued by scandal
Speaker 2: that was destroying the lives of those around him. Treating
Speaker 2: the woman pregnant with his child as a tempting annoyance,
Speaker 2: and channeling his distress into mocking Polodori, Byron was figuratively
Speaker 2: sucking the lives out of his friends. The Vampire did
Speaker 2: not end up being the revenge Polidori had hoped it
Speaker 2: would be. It wasn't originally meant to be published at all,
Speaker 2: merely circulated among peers, but the manuscript ended up in
Speaker 2: the hands of New Monthly Magazine, where the editor rather
Speaker 2: presumptuously assumed that it was written by Lord Byron. It
Speaker 2: was published under the name The Vampire, a Tale by
Speaker 2: Lord Byron, and while it was eventually amended after Polodori's demand,
Speaker 2: the resounding success of the publication would mean the story
Speaker 2: would forever be connected to Byron. While Polodori explained that
Speaker 2: it was Byron's initial idea to continue his fragment with
Speaker 2: the protagonist finding his companion alive upon his return and
Speaker 2: making love to his sister, everything else was of his
Speaker 2: Polodori's own imagination. Still, well into the eighteen nineties, the
Speaker 2: Vampire was included in collections of Byron's work. Still will
Speaker 2: it's Polodori who we have to thank for making the
Speaker 2: vampire genre what it is today. Vampire fiction existed before Polodori,
Speaker 2: but they were grotesque creatures. The byronic lord Ruthven was
Speaker 2: dark and seductive, like the vampires we know and love today.
Speaker 2: There may not have been the vampire without Byron's fragment,
Speaker 2: but without the vampire, we wouldn't have Dracula, or Carmela
Speaker 2: or Twilight. So who won the ghost story contest? No
Speaker 2: winner was formally declared, but we have to hand the
Speaker 2: title to the two underdogs who not only created the
Speaker 2: scariest monsters, but pioneered two literary genres. That's the story
Speaker 2: of Villa Diodati. But keep listening after a brief sponsor break,
Speaker 2: to hear more about very important work that was also
Speaker 2: created during the Year without a s Summer in eighteen sixteen,
Speaker 2: The nineteen year old composer Franz Schubert was hard at work.
Speaker 2: In that year alone. He produced two symphonies, choral music
Speaker 2: and chamber works that dark and rainy summer when our
Speaker 2: romantic poets were writing their ghost stories. Schubert had also
Speaker 2: been inspired by the weather in albed In. The Guardian
Speaker 2: argues that quote almost all of his songs reflected not
Speaker 2: only the wandering wondering and passionate romanticism of the age,
Speaker 2: but also the coldness and darkness of this mysterious period.
Speaker 2: I personally recommend Symphony number four in C Minor, dubbed
Speaker 2: The Tragic by Schubert. The composer would soon write Prometheus,
Speaker 2: of course, based on the myth of the Titan who
Speaker 2: stole fire from the gods to give to humanity. Prometheus
Speaker 2: had been a prominent figure in art since the early days,
Speaker 2: but he happened to be of particular importance to the
Speaker 2: Villa Diodatti crew Byron published his epic poem Prometheus in
Speaker 2: eighteen sixteen. In eighteen twenty, Percy would publish one of
Speaker 2: his major works, Prometheus Unbound and Lest We Forget Mary.
Speaker 2: Shelley had actually given Frankenstein a longer title. The full
Speaker 2: title of the novel was Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus.
Speaker 1: Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm and
Speaker 1: Mild from Aaron Mankey. The show was written and hosted
Speaker 1: by Dana Schwartz. Executive producers include Aaron Manke, Alex Williams,
Speaker 1: and Matt Frederick. The show is produced by rima Il
Speaker 1: Kahali and Trevor Young Noble Blood is on social media
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