In the year 1816, severe climate abnormalities caused global temperatures to drop dramatically. In some places, the fog reddened and dimmed the sunlight to such a degree that sunspots were visible to the naked eye. Crop failures led to food riots and widespread famine, causing approximately 200,000 deaths in Europe alone. In a villa near Lake Geneva, Switzerland, Lord Byron and his young physician John Polidori were sequestered from the inhospitable weather along with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, the author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, and Claire Clairmont. Over a three day period in June, the five turned to telling fantastical tales to pass the time, and then to composing their own. Out of that summer without light or warmth, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was born, along with what would become the archetypal creature of the night for generations to come—John Polidori’s Byron-inspired Vampyre.

Read more about Polidori's famous short story re-imagined from an entirely point of view at my blog:
http://www.bescully.com/2013/10/28/in...