The year is 1816. Four friends sit around a sputtering fire in an old Swiss villa on the banks of Lake Geneva.

Outside, a storm rages. It is the year without a summer, a long, strange winter, brought on by a volcanic eruption in Indonesia.

To amuse themselves, the friends read ghost stories to each other from an odd French folly

called Phantasmagoriana. Eventually, one of their members suggests that each of them write their own ghost story.

These friends are writers, you see.

One, the one who made the suggestion, is Lord Byron, celebrity poet of the romantic era.

The others are John Pallador, the writer and physician, Percy Bischelli, the great romantic poet,

and his 18-year-old lover, and soon-to-be wife, Mary. Of the four of them, only Mary will complete

the task. The book she will produce will go on to become one of the most famous books

ever written. She will call it Frankenstein, or the modern Prometheus. I'm Faith Moore. Join me for

season four of Storytime for grown-ups as we read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, a few chapters at a time

with a few notes along the way, like an audiobook with built-in notes. We begin on Thursday,

September 4th, with episodes dropping every Monday and Thursday wherever you get your podcasts.

So brew a pot of tea, find a cozy chair, and settle in. It's story time.