Halloween: A History of Vampires
It was 1816, and Lord Byron had invited a few friends to spend time at his villa near Lake Geneva. Among these friends were fellow poet Percy Shelley and his 18-year old wife Mary Shelley, and also John Polidori, his personal physician. "It proved a wet, ungenial summer", Mary Shelley later wrote. 1816 has been named the Year Without a Summer, because of a climate disaster that followed the eruption of Mount Tambora that left most of the world...