 " It proved a wet , ungenial summer " , Mary Shelley remembered in 1831 , " and incessant rain often confined us for days to the house " . Sitting around a log fire at Byron 's villa , the company amused themselves with German ghost stories , which prompted Byron to propose that they " each write a ghost story " . Unable to think of a story , young Mary Godwin became anxious : " Have you thought of a story ? I was asked each morning , and each morning I was forced to reply with a mortifying negative . " During one mid @-@ June evening , the discussions turned to the nature of the principle of life . " Perhaps a corpse would be re @-@ animated " , Mary noted , " galvanism had given token of such things " . It was after midnight before they retired , and unable to sleep , she became possessed by her imagination as she beheld the grim terrors of her " waking dream " , her ghost story : 
