June 16th: The Day Lord Byron's Tea-Party Changed Literary History

Lord Byron

As a student of English Literature I find it pretty fascinating that Lord Byron hosted a party that included himself; Percy and Mary Shelley; John Polidori; Claire Clairmont; and Villa Diodati, all under the same roof! On June 16th 1816, Lord Byron challenged his house guests to write a ghost story inspired by their readings of Fantasmagoriana, resulting in some of literature's finest works.
   Fantasmagoriana, or Tales of the Dead, was a popular English anthology of horror fiction, emerging in 1813. Lord Byron clearly had an interest in such excitable fiction, as he read it to his guests in the evening of June 16th, in an attempt to rouse some kind of gothic inspiration in his guests. He succeeded. Mary Shelley was among his guests, and accepting Byron's challenge to write a ghost story, Frankenstein was born. Shelley remains one of the main go-to gothic novelists in literature, and who'd have thought the classic Frankenstein was created in response to Lord Byron's dare. And thank goodness she was provoked by Byron too, as her novel has influenced popular culture ever since, becoming the subject matter of various film adaptations, and her monster is even part of the modern vernacular.

Mary Shelley's creation: Frankenstein

Furthermore, John Polidori was moved to write one of the original vampire-focused texts in literature: The Vampyre. What is clever about this text is not only does it incorporate vampirism; but also it is apparently based on the mysterious character of Lord Byron himself! British writer Christopher Frayling claims the 1819 novel is 'the first story successfully to fuse the disparate elements of vampirism into a coherent literary genre.' Before this novel, vampires only appeared in 18th century poetry. However after Polidori's revolutionary text was published, literary legends like Sheridan LeFanu's Carmilla (1847) and Bram Stoker's masterpiece Dracula (1897) caught onto the fangtastic band-wagon and established a global curiosity for vampires and gothic culture. Perhaps it is Lord Byron who should be responsible for kick-starting this vampire crazy world we live in today. So all you Twilight, True Blood and Vampire Diaries haters: Byron's your man!

 Lord Byron accepted his own challenge too, answering himself with the 1816 poem Darkness. The poem explores hellish Biblical imagery and notions of the apocalypse. Slightly different to your typical ghost story, but his poem was pretty sinister and gothic-infused. What kind of a tea-party ends in those kinds of results!? This is just further evidence of the monumental impact Lord Byron had on the course of English Literature. As the gothic genre is probably my personal favourite, I am in serious debt to Lord Byron, as he helped put ghosts, monsters and vampires back on the literary radar.