It was on a 'dark and stormy night', during the summer of 1816 that an eccentic group of English literati gathered at the Villa Diodati. The atmosphere at the Villa was charged by the violent streaks of lightening that licked at the mountain tops and split a black sky. As the wind outside whipped up the surface of lake Leman into a cauldron of waves the occupants of the Villa; Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, Dr John Polidori, Percy Shelley and Claire Clairmont, whipped themselves into a gothic frenzy with recitals of haunting poetry and ghost stories. The stories that they read came from a book, originally written in German, that had recently been translated into French. The book that they read from was called Fantasmagoriana. Fantasmagoriana has a unique place in literary history. This is the first full translation of the stories that inspired Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Dr John Polidori's The Vampyre.

In the gloomy summer of 1816, a motley collection of poets, exiles, and adulterers gathered at the Villa Diodati on the shores of Lake Geneva...Fantasmagoriana: a collection of Gothic tales by Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John William Polidori, all originating in a night of ghost storytelling.Contains the complete FRANKENSTEIN and Polidori's influential THE VAMPYRE, plus Gothic works by Byron, Shelley, and Mathew 'Monk' Lewis.

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This second volume of The Cambridge History of the Gothic provides a rigorous account of the Gothic in British, American and Continental European culture, from the Romantic period through to the Victorian fin de siècle. Here, leading scholars in the fields of literature, theatre, architecture and the history of science and popular entertainment explore the Gothic in its numerous interdisciplinary forms and guises, as well as across a range of different international contexts. As much a cultural history of the Gothic in this period as an account of the ways in which the Gothic mode has participated in the formative historical events of modernity, the volume offers fresh perspectives on familiar themes while also drawing new critical attention to a range of hitherto overlooked concerns. From Romanticism, to Penny Bloods, Dickens and even the railway system, the volume provides a compelling and comprehensive study of nineteenth-century Gothic culture.

These six classic tales of ghosts and hauntings, culled from Fantasmagoriana (1818), a German book that reputedly helped inspire Mary Shelley to pen her immortal novel Frankenstein while staying with Percy Shelley and the mad, vampiric Lord Byron on that haunted summer at Villa Diodati, in Switzerland, two hundred years ago. That night saw the birth of monsters such as the vampire Lord Ruthven, made famous by John Polidori's story The Vampire, as well a vampire tale by Byron himself, one left never finished. But the hideous visage of Frankenstein's monster was born from the nightmares of Mary, to stalk the earth and the dark, troubling dreams of man, forever. These six German classics of supernatural terror gave birth to the inspiration for such ghastly horrors. For, Fear, just as much as Love, is a universal language.

The inspiring story of the girl behind one of the greatest novels -- and monsters -- ever, perfectly timed for the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein. For fans for picture book biographies such as I Dissent or She Persisted. How does a story begin? Sometimes it begins with a dream, and a dreamer. Mary is one such dreamer, a little girl who learns to read by tracing the letters on the tombstone of her famous feminist mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, and whose only escape from her strict father and overbearing stepmother is through the stories she reads and imagines. Unhappy at home, she seeks independence, and at the age of sixteen runs away with poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, another dreamer. Two years later, they travel to Switzerland where they meet a famous poet, Lord Byron. On a stormy summer evening, with five young people gathered around a fire, Byron suggests a contest to see who can create the best ghost story. Mary has a waking dream about a monster come to life. A year and a half later, Mary Shelley's terrifying tale, Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus, is published -- a novel that goes on to become the most enduring monster story ever and one of the most popular legends of all time. A riveting and atmospheric picture book about the young woman who wrote one of the greatest horror novels ever written and one of the first works of science fiction, Mary Who Wrote Frankenstein is an exploration of the process of artistic inspiration that will galvanize readers and writers of all ages.

Fantasmagoriana - Selected Tales of the Dead assembles a haunting mosaic of narratives from the quills of Johann Karl August Musäus, Johann August Apel, and Friedrich August Schulze, among others, enveloping the reader in the spectral mists of the gothic imagination. This collection, rich in literary styles from the macabre to the eerily romantic, traverses the shadowy borderlands of human experience and supernatural folklore, marking its significance within the literary canon. Among its pages, standout pieces invite readers into a world where the boundaries between the living and the dead blur, each story weaving its unique spell of horror and fascination, without overshadowing the cohesive vision maintained across the anthology. The authors, hailing from the fertile literary period of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, contribute their diverse voices to a compendium that reverberates with the echoes of the Romantic and Gothic movements. The collection not only showcases their individual talents but also presents a collective exploration of themes such as mortality, the supernatural, and the human psyche's dark recesses. Their backgrounds, imbued with the philosophical and aesthetic currents of their time, lend the anthology an enriched texture, inviting an appreciation of the depth and variety of the eras literary output. Fantasmagoriana - Selected Tales of the Dead offers readers an unparalleled journey into the heart of darkness that is both educational and profoundly engaging. The anthology presents a rare opportunity to experience a wide array of narrative voices and stylistic approaches, all converging on the exploration of gothic and supernatural themes. It is an essential read for those intrigued by the macabre, scholars of Romantic and Gothic literature, and anyone seeking to immerse themselves in the chilling depths of the human imagination through the lens of historical literary movements.