How Byron’s challenge led to Dr Frankenstein

I Frankenstein, an action fantasy thriller based on Kevin Grevioux’s graphic novel, hits the big screen next week. Mary Shelley’s nameless ‘fiend’ is now Adam Frankenstein, played by Aaron Eckhart.

The story of the original Frankenstein begins one stormy night in June 1816 at Villa Diodati, a spooky house near Lake Geneva. Mary Shelley recalled: “The lake was lit up — the pines made visible, the scene illuminated for an instant, when a pitchy blackness succeeded, and the thunder came in frightful bursts over our heads …”

A blazing log fire cast shadows over the dining room furniture as Mary and a group of friends, including her lover Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, were taking turns to read from a book of German ghost stories. Suddenly Byron laid down a challenge: ‘We will all write a ghost story.’