“North-East of the city limits of Geneva, along the southern shore of Lake Leman. Extends the district of Cologny. In a superb location on the Cologny heights stands a modest, square, stucco house- the Villa Diodati.” (Clark) This noteworthy estate has housed both Lord Byron and Milton. The writers loved the property because of its incredible location and the marvelous nature that surrounds it. It was often a ground for their meditation on what the wrote.
Villa Diodati is famously known as the location where Mary Shelley first began to write her infamous novel Frankenstein. In may of 1826 Mary, along with her husband Percy Shelley, took a trip to visit Lord Byron who was in Switzerland at the time. The Villa was located on the shores of a lake in Switzerland. Byron and Percy soon became friends, “. . . spending the day sailing together and the evenings in lively discussion.”(Badalmenti 5) The visit was going smoothly until unexpected weather forced Byron, Percy, Mary, and others at the estate, to be kept inside the house for very long periods of time.
Due to this unexpected situation the group found themselves finding entertainment through ways of literature and writing. Their study eventually drove towards darker stories. “Inclement weather drove them to amuse themselves with reading German ghost stories. Byron then proposed that each of them write a ghost story, offering the challenge to himself, Percy, Mary, and his physician, Polidori.”(Badalmenti 5) This challenge is what pushed Mary Shelley to write a story outside of her normal associations with literature. It also posed here with a strange challenge to write the novel in a setting where she has very limited access to the public or other social networks. Mary Shelley was given the rare opportunity to write a story in almost complete solitude.
Frankenstein was written in response to Mary Shelley’s contemplation of being in the estate. She often would overhear conversation between Byron and Percy circulating the topic of life and death. Badalamenti comments that Mary had been fairly familiar with Darwin’s experiments in using electromagnetic energy to try and create life. As the thoughts developed in Shelley’s head she awoke one night from a horrific nightmare of an, “Image of a man made life gone awry was before her and as soon as she roused herself from sleep she realized that she had the core idea of the horror story she was challenged to create.”(Badalamenti 5) This striking image lead to Mary building a short story about the monster. Originally she was content with leaving it how it was, however Percy encouraged her to turn it into a full length novel for publishing.
Frankenstein has now become one of the most discussed novels in history because of its discourses on human life. Readers have been grasped by its content for centuries and still is being studied today. It is important to look back on the unfamiliar origin of this novel in order for us to fully appreciate the masterpiece it is. Mary Shelley's challenge to work outside of what she knew, along with an abnormal amount of time to focus on the text, ultimately lead to a text that will forever leave readers questioning the fragility of life and death.

Works Cited

Badalamenti, Anthony F. “Why Did Mary Shelley Write Frankenstein?” Journal of Religion and Health, vol. 45, no. 3, 2006, pp. 419–39, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27512949. Accessed 29 Apr. 2022.
Clark, William S. “Milton and the Villa Diodati.” The Review of English Studies, vol. 11, no. 41, 1935, pp. 51–57, http://www.jstor.org/stable/508675. Accessed 29 Apr. 2022.