"Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, was composed in the summer of 1816 by the 19-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft, later the wife of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, during a vacation she spent on the shores of Lake Geneva with Shelley and their friend the poet George Gordon, Lord Byron. The weather was cold and rainy; to pass the time, she, Shelley, and Byron engaged in a contest to craft the best horror story. Published anonymously in 1818, Mary Shelley's gothic novel has continued to exert an influence on literature and popular culture for nearly 200 years."
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