The following year (1816) becomes known as "Year Without a Summer", as the high level gases reflect sunlight and cause the widespread cooling (known as a volcanic winter) and heavy rains, snows in June and July in the northern hemisphere, and widespread crop failures. Culture Literature Lord Byron, regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential, wrote his most well-known work during this decade. Amongst Byron's works are the brief poems She Walks in Beauty, When We Two Parted, and So, we'll go no more a roving, in addition to the narrative poems Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan. Other events in literature: December 20, 1812 - The first volume of Grimm's Fairy Tales is published. January 28, 1813 – Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is published. September, 1813 – Robert Southey becomes Poet Laureate of Britain. 1813: The Philomathean Society of the University of Pennsylvania is founded (the oldest continuously existing literary society in the United States). 1814: Missionaries attempt to write down the Māori language. 1814: Sir Walter Scott writes Waverley. 1816: Jane Austen's Emma is published. 1817: Samuel Taylor Coleridge publishes Biographia Literaria. January 1, 1818 – Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is published. Fashion Theatre 1818: Old Vic founded (as Royal Coburg Hall). Music April 27, 1810 – Beethoven composes his famous piano piece, Für Elise. January 24, 1813 – The Philharmonic Society founded in London (later the Royal Philharmonic Society). December 8, 1813 – Beethoven's seventh symphony is performed for the first time in Vienna. February 27, 1814 – Beethoven's eighth symphony is performed for the first time in Vienna, less than three months after his seventh symphony was first performed. Beethoven reportedly told one of his pupils that the seventh symphony was more popular because his eighth symphony was better. It would be over ten years before the first performance of his next symphony in Vienna. February 20, 1816 – Gioachino Rossini's The Barber of Seville debuts at Teatro Argentina, with a fiasco. December 24, 1818 – Silent Night composed by Franz Xaver Gruber and Josef Mohr. Other 1815: First-class cricket begins. 1817: Elgin Marbles are displayed in the British Museum. 1818: The first edition of the Farmer's Almanac is published. People Authors Mary Shelley (Frankenstein) Disasters June 9, 1811 – The Great fire of the Podil breaks out in Kiev, Ukraine. May 25, 1812 – Felling mine disaster: A