Housebound by inclement weather at a villa near Geneva in 1817 in what has since come to be known as "The Year Without A Summer", a gifted group of writers passed the time by reading then-popular ghost stories and contemplating "the nature of the principle of life." Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Shelley's soon-to-be wife, Mary, then only nineteen, agreed to each compose ghost stories. Mary Shelley's story came to her during a restive night: "I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion." The result of her vision, which she later published as a full length novel, became the most famous and compelling horror story of all time.
This performance by Julie Harris delivers a chilling reading of the original work as told by the young Mary Shelley. Curl up on a lonely evening, with lights low and perhaps a storm raging outside and return to the 19th Century to experience the classic evocation of the macabre.
