17. In 1816 climate aberrations disrupted Britain’s food supply
1816 became known as the year without a summer, with Britain suffering its coldest July ever recorded. Volcanic eruptions in Indonesia created clouds of volcanic ash which obscured the sun, drifting westward. Across Europe and North America crops failed due to heavy rains and cold temperatures. England and Ireland lost the crops of wheat, oats, and potatoes. Livestock died from lack of fodder. With little food, and that available becoming unaffordable for most people, riots occurred across Europe, Britain, and North America. Trade in grains from the United States and Canada dwindled to next to nothing. In France, food riots reached the level of violence seen in the early days of the French Revolution.
A group of British writers traveled to Switzerland that summer. They included Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, as well as his companion and future wife, Mary Wollstonecraft. In response to a challenge from Lord Byron over whom among them could write the best horror story, Mary wrote Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. Published anonymously in 1818, with an introduction by Percy Shelley, it created a sensation. In 1823 a second edition identified Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley as its author. It remains one of the most adapted and popular tales of all time, though Frankenstein is often regarded as the monster, rather than the man who created it. In Shelley’s tale, the monster had no name.