Any romantic designs Clairmont might have had on Shelley were frustrated initially , but she did bring the Shelleys into contact with Lord Byron , with whom she entered into an affair before he left England in 1816 to live abroad . ( A year marked by agricultural failures and widespread European famine , but also of significant literary advances as the Godwin-Shelley-Byron circle holed up indoors , 1816 would later be known as the " year without a summer " . ) Clairmont hoped to become a writer or an actress and wrote to Byron asking for " career advice " in March 1816 , when she was almost 18 . Byron was a director at the Drury Lane Theatre . Clairmont later followed up her letters with visits , sometimes bringing Mary , whom she seemed to suggest Byron might also find attractive . " Do you know I can not talk to you when I see you ? I am so awkward and only feel inclined to take a little stool and sit at your feet , " Clairmont wrote to Byron . She " bombarded him with passionate daily communiques " telling him he need only accept " that which it has long been the passionate wish of my heart to give you " . She arranged for them to meet at a country inn . Byron , in a depressed state after the breakup of his marriage to Annabella Milbanke and the scandal over his relationship with his half-sister Augusta Leigh , made it very clear to Clairmont before he left that she would not be a part of his life . But she was determined to change his mind
year without a summer
Year Without a Summer
Claire Clairmont