I

n the spring of 1816, Mary Godwin;

her lover, the poet Percy Bysshe

Shelley; their infant son, William;

and Mary’s stepsister, Jane, trav-

eled to Switzerland, searching for

the notorious poet George Gordon

Byron, known as Lord Byron, who

was on his way to Lake Geneva. In

London, Byron had become embroiled

in a series of scandals: a nasty divorce;

an affair with his half sister, Augusta,

who may have given birth to his daugh-

ter; and the controversial publication of

Lady Caroline Lamb’s best-selling novel

Glenarvon, which featured a rakish

character based on Byron, the author’s

former lover. He was, in Lamb’s words,

“Mad, bad, and dangerous to know.”

The son of a fortune-hunting wid-

ower who had squandered his heir-

ess wife’s money, Byron was a landed

nobleman who became England’s most

famous poet. In fact, he was the Regency

era’s reigning sex symbol and arguably

the first modern celebrity—thanks

more to his life than to his work. Both

men and women found him irresistible.

Mary’s stepsister, Jane, was certainly

among them. Calling herself Claire (it

sounded more romantic than Jane, she

reasoned), she set her sights on Byron

after watching crowds gawking out-

side his London home. The poet even-

tually succumbed to her advances, then

promptly rejected her, which didn’t

deter the irrepressible young woman.

She was in love with him, after all—not

to mention pregnant with his child.

Which is why she set off, accompanied

by Mary and Shelley, for Lake Geneva.

A scandalized British public dubbed

this group “the League of Incest,”

but they were far more than youth-

ful hedonists. (Mary and Claire were

both 18, Shelley was 23, and Byron was

the “old man” at 28.) In fact, they would

become central figures in the Romantic

movement that flourished throughout

Europe in the 1800s, and the work they

produced that summer in Switzerland

would change literature—and popular

culture—forever.

Arriving at the lake in May, Mary,

Shelley, and baby William checked into

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