Today: a tale of darkness, gathering storms, and a terrifying creature that resembles a human man...

No, nothing topical: it's The Year Without A Summer, the story of how Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. This piece first appeared on Eric Molinsky's excellent podcast Imaginary Worlds. Hear all the episodes at imaginaryworldspodcast.org.

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MAILCHIMP'S RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:

cachinnate