504 - Eyeball Territory

Summary

My Favorite Murder Ep. 504: "Eyeball Territory"

Release Date: October 30, 2025
Hosts: Karen Kilgariff & Georgia Hardstark
Network: Exactly Right / iHeartPodcasts

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Episode Overview

This Halloween-adjacent episode centers on the strange, stormy, and tragic real-life events that inspired Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein. Karen Kilgariff tells the story of "the year without a summer," the haunted summer at Lake Geneva in 1816, and the grief-filled biography of Mary Shelley. Throughout, the hosts interweave their signature humor and personal anecdotes from touring, offering both chilling history and lighthearted commentary.

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Key Segments & Insights

1. Tour Talk & Listener Letters

[02:37–07:37]

• Karen and Georgia share favorite moments from their ongoing live tour, including fan gifts and memorable stage incidents.
• Karen recounts a listener email about a serendipitous road encounter, highlighting the unpredictability of public interactions.
• Notable Quote:
  • “You never know what other people are going through. And it's like, ‘Honk honk, hey!’”—Karen Kilgariff [07:30]

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2. Network and Show Updates

[07:41–09:14]

• Announcements about other Exactly Right shows, special episodes, and revived merchandise.
• Brief digressions on wardrobe staples and favorite sweaters—signature MFM banter.

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3. Main Story Introduction: The Birth of Frankenstein

[12:36–13:34]

• Karen introduces the Halloween-themed story: Mary Shelley's creation of Frankenstein during the legendary 1816 retreat at Lake Geneva, against a backdrop of global catastrophe and personal grief.
• Notable Quote:
  • “This is the story of Mary Shelley and that gloomy summer vacation when she created Frankenstein.”—Karen Kilgariff [13:24]

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4. The Global Catastrophe: Mount Tambora's Eruption

[13:34–20:14]

• Karen details the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815, calling it "the most destructive explosion in recorded history."
• The eruption led to 1816 being known as "the year without a summer," with global famine, crop failure, and disease.
• Georgia excitedly recommends the book The Year Without Summer, adding context about widespread confusion during the era.
• Notable Quote:
  • “100 times more powerful than Mount St. Helens’ eruption in 1980.”—Karen Kilgariff [15:36]

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5. Mary Shelley's Early Life: Tragedy and Rebellion

[20:14–25:47]

• Karen summarizes Mary’s radical, troubled family: her mother Mary Wollstonecraft’s trailblazing feminism (and early death), her father William Godwin, and difficult stepmother.
• Mary’s formative years spent in cemeteries, learning to write by tracing her mother’s headstone; exile to Scotland opens creative doors.
• First meeting with Percy Bysshe Shelley, their scandalous romance, and her difficult pregnancies.
• Notable Quote:
  • “It's said that Mary learns to write by tracing the letters on her mother's headstone.”—Karen Kilgariff [22:10]

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6. Catastrophic Grief and Historical Resonance

[25:47–30:54]

• Early loss of her first child, and her dream that echoes in Frankenstein: “Dreamt that my little baby came to life again ... I find no baby. I think about the little thing all day.” [25:47]
• Second pregnancy coincides with global gloom—"volcanic winter."

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7. The Lake Geneva Gathering: Where Monsters Are Born

[30:54–39:13]

• Mary, Percy, Claire, and baby travel to Geneva, near the infamous Lord Byron, at Claire's urging (motivated by their affair).

• Grueling weather, frequent storms, and a guestlist filled with bohemian writers create the ideal gothic backdrop.

• Byron, Claire, Polidori, and the Shelleys spend stormbound nights reading ghost stories, drinking, and engaging in laudanum-fueled drama.

• Newspapers call them a "League of Incest"; scandal and spectacle abound.

• Notable Quote:

  • “They're like stuck in the beginning of the movie Frankenstein ... It was a dark and stormy night.”—Karen Kilgariff [33:45]

• Lord Byron’s literary challenge: each guest must write an original ghost story.

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8. Origins of Modern Horror: Vampires and Frankenstein

[39:13–41:35]

• Byron nearly invents the modern aristocratic vampire; Polidori develops it further in The Vampyre, inspiring Dracula and beyond.

• Mary turns her trauma and the group’s eerie environment into the first version of Frankenstein (subtitled "The Modern Prometheus"), prompted by a "contest" and group encouragement.

• Notable Quote:

  • “It is about grief, alienation, and guilt, things Mary has felt since childhood.”—Karen Kilgariff [45:55]

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9. Mary Shelley’s Continued Loss and Artistic Resilience

[41:35–47:02]

• Further tragedies: the deaths of her half-sister, Percy’s wife, two of her children, and her husband all follow within a few years.
• Mary astonishingly survives and supports herself by writing, but faces doubts and credit theft from a misogynistic literary world.
• Years later, she publicly claims authorship of Frankenstein—many refuse to believe her.
• Scholars now see Frankenstein as a deeply feminist text, born from immense loss and reflecting a world “without mothers and a world without strong women.”
• Notable Quote:
  • “Unchecked male ambition, says Mary Shelley, is going to wreak havoc on the world.”—Charlotte Gordon via Karen Kilgariff [46:37]

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10. Hosts’ Reflections and Halloween Chat

[47:04–48:02]

• Georgia and Karen praise the story’s dark resonance and Mary Shelley’s courage.
• Light banter about Halloween plans: Georgia will be in costume at home passing out candy; Karen will be “a person who’s happy to be home.”
• Discussion of the neighborhood kids and love for the holiday.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Public Grief & Creativity:
  “I dreamt that my little baby came to life again ... that it had been cold and that we rubbed it before the fire and it lived.”—Mary Shelley’s diary, read by Karen [25:47]

• On Frankenstein’s Meaning:
  “Frankenstein is actually a book about women ... a dystopian novel about a world without mothers and a world without strong women.”—Charlotte Gordon via Karen [46:37]

• On Weather and Doom:
  “If you look at paintings from that time, the sky is literally a different color for years.”—Georgia [17:59]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Tour Recap & Listener Email: 02:37–07:37
• Podcast Announcements: 07:41–09:14
• Frankenstein Story Intro: 12:36–13:34
• Mount Tambora & Global Disaster: 13:34–20:14
• Mary Shelley's Early Life: 20:14–25:47
• Lake Geneva Ghost Story Challenge: 30:54–39:13
• Birth of Frankenstein & Literary Legacies: 39:13–41:35
• Mary’s Later Life & Legacy: 41:35–47:02
• Halloween Banter & Wrap-up: 47:04–48:02

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Tone & Style

True to MFM’s approach, the episode delivers historical true crime with a darkly humorous, conversational tone. Karen weaves deep research with empathy and drama, while Georgia offers emotional reactions, side commentary, and comic relief.

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Final Thoughts

This episode dives deep into the spooky yet moving origins of Frankenstein, showing how personal pain and historical catastrophe can fuel creative genius. Jealousy, loss, weather calamity, and revolutionary ideals swirl together in a haunted summer—perfect listening for Halloween or anyone fascinated by literary history.

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Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered.

[48:02]

Transcript

[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

You may know Michael as the immigration lawyer from TikTok who gives an insider's perspective on the legal system, usually with way more humor than it deserves. And Melissa has spent her career as a nonprofit leader, a writer, and most importantly, Michael's best friend.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And together they discuss real life legal issues that affect us all. It's smart, hilarious and it makes the law accessible in a time when we all need to know what's going on.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So stick around after this episode of My Favorite Murder to hear the trailer for Brief recess, premiering Thursday, November 13th.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And you can follow Brief Recess now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Goodbye.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Hello and welcome to My Favorite Murder.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's Georgia Hardstark, that's Karen Kilgariff, and we're back for a moment from the road.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We are in the midst of our tour. Let's See, when this goes up, we'll only have two cities left. Can you believe that? We have just done la, which is insane.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. It feels like it was just a gleam in our eye and now it's almost over.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What's your favorite moment? I know what your favorite gift is from the road.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You do?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. We haven't talked about this yet for some reason.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Favorite moment? I did enjoy kicking that stuffed animal back out into the audience after they threw it at us.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's right. Someone threw up like a big plushie. And it rolled onto the stage like a grenade.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It was very scary.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It was very surreal. Quiet moment, but we just stared at it and we didn't know what to do. And then Karen just took two steps and punted it back into the audience.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean, one of my proudest moments. What about yours?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Well, I was gonna say to you, do you remember when someone in the meet and greet very early on was a dentist and brought you the little scrubby toothbrush, toothpaste thing from after you got your teeth clean?

[Karen Kilgariff]

It was the most meaningful gift. Like what? You know, the real gift is people actually hearing you when you say things.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He came up and he's like, I'm a dentist. So I brought you the gift that only I can give you or whatever, you know, his little speech was.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. That you asked for an episode, like 270something.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. Where the story of me asking my own childhood dentist that when I was like 10 years old and he just started laughing. He's like, what are you talking about? And then he was like, I'm a dentist and I got it for you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

He gave you a baggie, like, full of dental scrubs.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The scrubbiest tooth polish that I can't really use at home. I don't have a polisher, but, oh, I'm so glad you reminded me of that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That was so incredible.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That was really good.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Well, thanks to everyone for coming to the show so far. They've been just absolutely incredible to come back, just having not done that in six years. I forgot what it was like to walk on stage with people screaming at you. And it is just, like, unlike any feeling you'll ever have. I'm assuming that giving birth is like that. I don't know. I'll never know.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I think it's a lot louder than giving birth. Although who am I to say?

[Georgia Hardstark]

A lot more fun.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So good. So, like, I do think it's that electricity that you can only get in that situation. It's easy to go like, oh, yeah, I remember and whatever. But it's like, once you're doing it, I don't know. I find it addictive. I love it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. I'm worried I'll be, like, chasing that high for the rest of my life once this, in 20 years when this all ends. All right, what do you got?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, let's see. Oh, can I read you this email? That's from a listener from a story I told about pulling up behind somebody that actually had an SSD jam bumper sticker. So I got to see it in real life, and it was the first time. Well, someone wrote in, and it. The subject line is, Karen honked at me. And it says, let's get into it. It was a weird day. I was rushing home from work because I got a call that my wife was in a bike accident. And then it says, she's okay. Banged up and bruised, but okay. I was just focused on getting to her at the urgent care off Pass Avenue. I exited the 134 pass and was. And was letting my mind go to dark places when. Honk, honk. Huh? That was weird. Who's honking? I look in my rearview mirror, and the woman behind me is waving. Okay, weird. The light turns green, and I'm making my left turn and honk, honk, honk. Now, said woman has her window rolled down, and she's waving emphatically. She's smiling, so she must not be pissed at me for something I've done. In my confusion, I waved back because it's the polite thing to do.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God. This person was having an actual emergency, and you were, like, you were concerned as to why they weren't paying attention to you, but they were literally having an emergency.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I demand that you talk to me about my. My podcast, no matter what's happening in your family. Okay. It says, I turned left into the parking lot, and she kept going. I figured I'd never know what the hell that was about. Cut to a.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Didn't even know it was you. Oh, my God.

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, that's. This is hilarious. So cut to a few weeks later, and I get a frantic text from my friend Ann. And then it says, quotes, was this you? And then she sent me an Instagram post where Karen describes her version of this encounter. I wish I'd realized it was Karen. Even though I was in the middle of a weird damn life sucks sometimes moment, it would have lifted my spirits, even for just a passing moment. Oh, that's nice, Karen. If you see me again in U Honk, I promise to be as joyful and excited as you looked last time.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh. Oh, my God. I can't believe we're getting the other side of this story. Hilarious.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And then it says, my friend Amber and I will see you ladies in Pasadena. Can't wait. We'll be the ones waving in the middle section. Xoxo, Catsy.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We gotta wave at them.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We gotta say hi to them. That is the sweetest. I mean, what a horrible. And yet. Thank God it wasn't, you know, it turned out okay. Yeah, man.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But just to have that happen while you're having a panic attack, essentially. Oh, my God.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's a real act out of. You never know what other people are going through. And it's like, Hong Kong, Hong. Hey, Hong Kong conquer you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

All right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hong Kong.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, that's. That's amazing.

[Karen Kilgariff]

All right. Should we do some highlights?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. We have a podcast network called My. What's it called? Exactly Right Media.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I'm so tired. Here are some highlights.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay, so tomorrow, Buried Bones, we'll have a very special bonus episode from the high seas. Live from the Virgin Voyages crime cruise, Paula and Kate take on one of their most requested cases ever. The Black Dahlia. Whoa. Yeah. You can watch the full episode on the exactly right YouTube channel, YouTube.com exactlyrightmedia or you can listen to the audio wherever you get your podcasts.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow. What a show. Speaking of YouTube, a brand new Halloween episode of MFM Animated premiered yesterday. Head over to the Exactly Right YouTube channel channel again, YouTube.com exactlyrightmedia to watch child Devil out now.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We got to see Nick Terry in Seattle. He's the greatest.

[Georgia Hardstark]

He is.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And episode five of our newest series, Helen Heaven, produced with Blanchard House and I Heart Podcasts, is out today. It is a hit podcast. It's so exciting. This thing shot up the charts and you should listen. One gunshot, one body, and a mystery that only gets stranger. From there, it's hell in heaven.

[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

But she gets seven of the same color for you so you can wear different ones every day of the week. I mean I absolutely so find your fall staples at quints.

[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

Goodbye.

[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

Goodbye.

[Georgia Hardstark]

All right, Karen, you're. You're up and you're only up and only.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I'm the only one up. You're sitting up with me. So thank you for that and thank you for everyone else doing it too. I'm going to tell you guys a little story in honor of Halloween tomorrow. It takes place in Lake Geneva, Switzerland, in 1918, and that summer is remembered for two big things. Gray skies and very little sunshine. And two, the birthday of a very, very famous monster. The real story of his creation is fittingly gothic. There's death, disaster, a lot of drama, and a handful of bohemian literary heavyweights huddled in a room drunk and fawning all over each other while thunder and lightning rages outside. And among those bohemians is our famous monster's true creator. And she is only a teenager. This is the story of Mary Shelley and that gloomy summer vacation with when she created Frankenstein.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Holy shit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay, so the main sources that Maren used in this story today are works of several Mary Shelley biographers, including Charlotte Gordon, Fiona Sampson, and Miranda Seymour. And the rest of the sources are in our show notes. So truly, to really set the scene, the story starts in 1815 in Indonesia on the island of Sumbawa. And that is where the volcano Mount Tambora erupts in a deadly series of blasts.

[Georgia Hardstark]

There is a book I was just gonna tell you that I am obsessed with called the year without summer 1816 and the volcano that Darkened the World and Changed History. And her story, she's in it. Mary Shelley. Like, yes, yes, this is it. It's by William Clingman and Nicholas Clingman. It's so fucking good.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I'm about to retell you this story that you know.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, but I had never heard of it before and like, people don't know it and it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Me either.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Changed. Changed history.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And it's such a big, like the kickoff disaster event is such a gigantic disaster. It's like beyond belief. Yeah, the volcano.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But the thing is, that's cool too, is that nobody knew why everything changed, that it was a volcano until the future because they didn't have just like weathermen telling you what was going on.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, yeah, yeah. That makes sense.

[Georgia Hardstark]

A mystery.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So they're just like, it's rainy, it's just summertime, but it's thunderstorms and craziness.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Not only that, it's like none of the crops are growing. Why is this happening? No one knew. Okay. Oh, my God, I'm so excited.

[Karen Kilgariff]

This is so widespread. Family.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I'm very dorky about loving this book and now I'm so excited to hear this.

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, it's so good. Okay, so then tell me and jump in when you know stuff, please, if there's like, details or whatever. So it's Mount Tambora erupting in a series of deadly blasts. The final explosion happens on April 10, and it is particularly catastrophic. To put it into perspective, it's considered the most destructive explosion in recorded history. It is 100 times more powerful than Mount St. Helens eruption in 1980.

[Georgia Hardstark]

A hundred times.

[Karen Kilgariff]

A hundred times. And if you want to know how powerful that eruption was, you can go to episode 370, necessary yelling, and I will tell you all about it. Okay. So some reports say that the blast could be heard more than 2,000 miles away. So that would mean if you're in Los Angeles, you can hear an explosion in Atlanta, Georgia.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It blows more than 4,000ft off the mountaintop. And eyewitnesses say that it looks like Mount Tambora has been, quote, consumed by liquid fire. A fountain of ash, water, and molten rock shooting in every direction. So this explosion creates fiery, hot, extremely powerful gusts of wind that flatten homes, uproot trees, and toss human beings around like rag dolls. Pumice stones the size of grapefruits are falling from the sky.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, pre pumice stones.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right. Just grab one for your heels and get indoors, please, please. But it won't matter if you're indoors because 15 foot tall tsunamis hit land and destroy everything that is still standing. Heavy ash falls from the skies, burying everything within 20 miles of the volcano. And most lethally, scorching 1,000 degree debris shoots down the side of Mount Tambora at 100 miles an hour in what look like fiery avalanches that incinerate everything in their paths. Vegetation, homes, and, of course, the people. It's estimated 10,000 people die instantly in this explosion. But then, as you were saying, in the months that follow, the nearby villages reel from destruction of crops and all the ash that's still in the air and no clean water. And then the death toll in Indonesia grows eventually to 90,000. According to scientific American, Quote, no other volcanic explosion in history has come close to wreaking disaster of that magnitude.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So it was. It's obviously humongous and then has all these repercussions because once that debris is in the atmosphere, it forms a massive cloud of volcanic, you know, junk. And it envelops the entire planet in two months. And that causes bizarre, unprecedented weather systems all around the world. So some places see strange, sudden frosts, some see unending rain, others suffer horrible droughts. And it all causes the following year, 1816, to go down in history as, quote, the year without a summer.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So crazy. And if you look at paintings from that time, landscape paintings, the sky is a different color in all those paintings because the sky was literally different color for years.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's insane. Like ashy, ashy gray.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like reddish. Weird. Yeah. Ashy.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, yeah. Like when it's sunset, but there's been a fire and it turns those crazy colors.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, yeah, we know that here in la, too.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, yeah, but that's not the end of the devastation. The eruption sends more than 35 cubic miles of ash, gas and debris into the skies. Wired magazine will say it was enough to, quote, bury all the playing surface of Fenway park in Boston, 81,544 miles deep in ash. What?

[Georgia Hardstark]

I can't even wrap my head around that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I know it's because we're not baseball people, but it's basically like from here to that far into space, essentially is so much.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's how much.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So much was in the air. As far away as the southern United States, snowfall is reported in both June and July, with one Virginian note that, quote, on July 4th, water froze in cisterns and snow fell again with Independence Day celebrants moving inside churches where hearth fires warmed things a mite. End quote. Of course, that all makes for very bad harvests, meaning food supplies around the world are much smaller than normal. The prices for basics skyrocket, and that leads to a widespread famine. A writer named Gillen Darcy Wood notes that, quote, villagers in Vermont survived on groundhogs and boiled nettles.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, dear.

[Karen Kilgariff]

While the peasants of Yunnan in China sucked on white clay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Summer tourists traveling in France mistook beggars, crowding the roads for armies on the march. So it's horrible. And it's horrible everywhere. Hunger, cold temperatures, and social chaos is all around, making it hard for the average person to fend off disease. Europe sees a brutal outbreak of typhus that kills 40,000 people. And the first deadly global cholera pandemic begins soon after that in 1817. There's not an exact global death toll that we can attribute to the Mount Tambora eruption, but writer Gillen Darcy Wood estimates that it's somewhere in the tens of millions.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, that's because the cumulative issues that caused more and more death, it's so. It reminds me of the Spanish flu of 1919, which I love reading about, where it's just this kind of mystery of where it came from. But the devastation it did is just so fascinating and widespread and like, it doesn't discriminate. Like everyone's fucked, essentially.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right, okay. So it's a terrifying, disorienting time to be alive. Death and desperation permeates everything all around. And this is what's happening in the world when we meet our hero. Mary Walston Kra Godwin in London, England. Mary is a quietly intense redhead who comes from a famously radical family. Her father is a well known writer and anarchist named William Godwin, and he is also credited with publishing the first English detective novel called Caleb Williams.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, I had no idea.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I know, right? Such a good title for a detective novel.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Say it again.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Caleb Williams. It's not. Sounds like a seventh grader at a local junior high. And her mother is Mary Wollstonecraft, who is a trailblazing feminist writer and philosopher whose fierce devotions to women's rights inspire the men of her time to dismiss her as, quote, a hyena in petticoat. Oof. So she must have been good.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, yeah, totally.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But the sad thing is, Mary never knew her mother. Because in 1790 seven days after giving birth to Mary, Mary Wollstonecraft dies of infection because the doctors removed her placenta with dirty, unwashed hands. Guys, can we please? So horrifying. Mary carries the burden of her mother's death from a very young age. She spends a lot of time in the cemetery where her mother's buried. It's said that Mary learns to write by tracing the letters on her mother's headstone. And when she's a bit older. She spends hours sitting on her mother's grave reading her mother's feminist works.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God. Heartbreaking.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She's like a little Edward Gorey character, like playing in the cemetery. So then her father remarries and sadly, her stepmother, Mary Jane Claremont, is a jealous, controlling woman who openly favors her own children, especially her daughter Claire. It's a tense, crowded living situation. Mary feels completely cast aside, and she spends even more time at the cemetery to escape from her increasingly fraught home life. And then it gets worse. As she grows into a teenager, Mary starts to look exactly like her mother, which seems to be more than her stepmother can handle. So under the guise of a health treatment, Mary is sent off to Scotland to live with family friends. So at the time, Scotland has a huge arts and literary scene and there's tons of inspiring revolutionary thinkers.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So her stepmom kind of did her a favor by kicking her out.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, Getting her out of there. And suddenly it's like, ooh, best case scenario.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, world opens up.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. So one of Mary's biographers, Charlotte Gordon, describes it as, quote, like going to San Francisco during Haight Ashbury. And it's here, while in exile from her own home, that Mary really starts developing her creative voice and her interest in writing. So from time to time, Mary travels back to London to visit her beloved father. And it's on one of these visits that she first meets a poet named Percy Bysshsshe Shelley. He's five years her senior. He is now famous for his sonnet Ozymandias, but when they meet in the 1810s, he's not a famous poet, he's actually an authority bucking young bohemian from a filthy rich family who spends a lot of time with Mary's father trying to learn about his philosophical takes on anarchy. Percy also has some notoriety after being kicked out of Oxford for refusing to admit that he'd circulated a pamphlet entitled the Necessity of Atheism. Percy is also a married father, though he's sometimes said to be estranged from his wife, Harriet Shelley. It seems safe to say Percy is not a particular, particularly present husband to his wife, and he has actually adopted a non monogamous ethos that Mary will struggle with from here on out. As will Harriet, of course. But all this is to say, when Percy and Mary first meet, sparks fly. She will bring him to her mother's grave. That's where they'll first say, I love you. They end up running off together not long after, and pretty soon after that, that Mary gets pregnant. She is 16 at the time.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, shit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Huh? And Percy is 21, so that's a huge scandal. So to escape the dirty looks and the gossip, they leave England and they just start traveling around Europe. Mary's stepsister, Claire, the one that the stepmother favored, she dabbles in writing and speaks several languages. So she joins them and acts as kind of a local translator. And. And Mary is actually very close with her stepsister, even though she doesn't like her mother. They're like a year apart in age. So as the three move throughout the continent, Percy encourages Mary to write. But she's so exhausted from her pregnancy, she feels constantly sick and weak. Her lack of energy is only intensified by the fact that they are constantly traveling. And then she tries to start projects and then she can't finish them and it's all. She's just all kind of exhausted all the time.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So I sometimes travel and I'm not pregnant and I can't fucking imagine.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I know, writing a gadget novel and not being able to take like vitamins or something that you're just kind of like on a train for four. Oh my God.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So in February of 1815, Mary goes into premature labor and they lose the baby. She's overcome with grief. And just one week after losing her child, she writes in her diary, quote, dreamt that my little baby came to life again, that it had been cold and that we rubbed it before the fire and it lived awake and find no baby. I think about the little thing all day, not in good spirits. So sad. But it is a significant moment for more reasons than one. So it's two months after this tragedy that Mount Tambora erupts. And it is a fitting reflection of her grief. The way the skies all darken and the sun never comes out. Everything turns to unending gray. Before long, Mary's pregnant again. And In January of 1816, as that volcanic ash circles the earth, 19 year old Mary gives birth to a boy named William. It's spooky season, but your home should feel lived in, not haunted.

[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

I've seen it and I will vouch for it. It was freaking adorable. And it fits so well with your house. Yes. So if you're in the market for a beautiful new sofa, dining table or bed, head over to article.com Goodbye. Goodbye. You've built a home you love, now make sure it's secure.

[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

Of mind because ultimately it's like you want to be able to check in, know for a fact and not think about it anymore.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's like the last thing anyone needs is more stress these days.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Absolutely.

[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

And yes, it always kind of does.

[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

It also helps monitor your cat's health, detecting abnormalities in your cat's urine by testing acidity and Alkalinity levels and the visible presence of blood. I mean, we were joking in the beginning, but Pretty Litter actually does solve this problem.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It does.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I used to have cats too, so I have no judgment. But I mean, like, that is a tough problem to solve. And this is a cat litter that not only has solved that problem, but a couple more.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Vince and I are always like, it doesn't smell like cat pee in here. Right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It doesn't look like.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We're always obsessed about it and worried about it and sniffing around the house and like knowing that Pretty Litter is there and just taking care of it and we don't even have to think about it is huge peace of mind.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

Every feline health issue or prevent or diagnose diseases. A diagnosis can only come from a licensed veterinarian. Terms and conditions apply. See site for details. Goodbye. So now it's May of 1816 and it's the beginning of the so called volcanic winter. Mary, Percy and the baby are cushioned from the worst of it. When their funds dry up, they just get money from Percy's father who bails them out. So they always have food, they always have shelter, but the world outside is very bleak for a lot of people and there's just a sense of dread everywhere. So it's at this point that Mary and Percy decide that they're going to go to Geneva, Switzerland. And Claire is the one who actually suggests this idea. But she does have an agenda. Claire actually knows that 28 year old poet Lord Byron is going to be in Geneva, Switzerland.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She's like, he's totally gonna be there and I've gotta meet him.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes. Well, no, she'd already been having a bit of an affair with him.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I've been fucking him and I've got to see him.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Exactly. She is kind of obsessed. She's been writing him witty, flirtatious letters and basically propositioning him. He takes her up on the offer, but then she kind of won't leave him alone. And he's. Lord Byron is infamous for being really awful to his exes. So he's just like a love him and leave him type of guy. He is also the titan of the Romantic movement. But unlike Percy Bysshe Shelley, Byron is a massive celebrity at this point. Charlotte Gordon Likens him to Mick Jagger at the height of his fame.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So one of Lord Byron's most famous literary works, which is called Child with an E at the end. Child, Harold's Pilgrimage. It was published a few years earlier to serious acclaim. But he's as famous for his private life. He has a reputation for sleeping with anyone he thinks is interesting, men or women, married or single, even his own family members. He actually is rumored to have had an affair with his own half sister.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Jesus, he sounds like a vampire. Is he a vampire?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right. Oh, well. Oh, that will come. That will come up. That will come up.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Classic vampire moves right there.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Classic. Just being like, there's no boundaries. I'm really open, and I love blood. So in 1816, amid accusations that he's engaging in, quote, sodomy and homosexuality, both illegal in England at the time, he moves to Switzerland. So the problem with Claire's plan is Lord Byron has made it clear he is not into her and he doesn't like her, but she can't help herself. So she basically hopes if they go there, Mary and Percy will be the ones that help rekindle the connection, because Lord Byron will be, like, obsessed with them because they're two young writers, you know, doing it all. They're bohemian, they're creative, and they're all outrunning scandals. So there's just a lot of. It's very juicy. So In May of 1816, the Shelleys arrive in Lake Geneva, and they rent a house there, just steps from Lord Byron's Lake City mansion, Villa Diodati. Even though it's supposed to be a summer vacation, the weather's brutal. The fallout from Mount Tambora is hitting Europe hard, especially in Switzerland. It rains nearly every single day that summer. It floods Geneva with mud and rotting crops from the soaking Wet Fields. On June 1, Mary writes a letter to a family member saying, quote, an almost perpetual rain confines us principally to the house. One night, we enjoyed a finer storm that I had never before beheld. The lake was lit up, the pines made vis and all the scene illuminated for an instant when a pitchy blackness succeeded and the thunder came in frightful bursts over our heads amid the blackness.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow. Moody. So moody, right?

[Karen Kilgariff]

They're, like, stuck in the beginning of the movie. Frankens died. It's just like, constantly that thing. It was a dark and stormy night.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So one afternoon, amid all this intense, gloomy weather, the Shelley household finally crosses paths with Lord Byron. And Clare was right. He hits it off with Percy and Mary immediately, and he invites back to his villa. So they meet his fleet of dogs, monkeys and even a Falcon and his 20 year old traveling companion, John Polidori. He serves as Byron's personal physician. Polidori also has literary ambitions and he's being paid by Byron's publisher to keep journals on their travels together. And then they plan to publish them as a book. So word of Byron and Shelly Camp's linking up makes it all the way back to England, where they're talked about as a, like a scandalized super group. Newspapers refer to them as, quote, League of Incest. A gaggle of British guests at a nearby Geneva hotel set up a telescope aimed right at the villa, but the thick fog makes it impossible for them to be able to look inside. But they're trying to look inside. If they could see inside, what they'd see is everyone drinking tons of wine and laudanum, which is diluted liquid opium, and then either sleeping with each other or getting into fights with each other or some combination of the. Even though Lord Byron openly despises Claire, by the end of the summer he's still sleeping with her. And so she gets pregnant.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I think this is Love island uk.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's almost like better, it's like haunted. Frankenstein.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Love island, totally. Oh, I'd watch this. It's crazy. I'd watch it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

There are some historians who've speculated, but nothing's been proven, that actually this child is Percy Bysshe Shelley's child because he and Claire are suspected of having an affair. And depending on which source you're reading, it's also been said that Polidori is infatuated with either Lord Byron or Mary. Drama aside, it's impossible for these people to enjoy the outdoors, so they basically spend every night by a fire at the villa reading spooky poems and stories while thunder and lightning rattle the mansion. They're reading from a book named Phantasmagoriana, which is a collection of German horror stories recently translated into French. It has a bit of everything. Ghosts, malevol spirits, family curses, haunted places, stuff like that. And they are all drunken high. So these stories hit pretty hard. One night, as Lord Byron is reading, Percy jumps out of his chair and bolts out of the room. And he later says, quote, he'd seen a terrifying vision of Mary who'd been in the corner nursing their child with staring eyes instead of nipples on her breasts.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Did you, dude, take a nap.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He's freaking out.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Go take a nap of orange slices.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Put that laudman down. Yeah. Stop with the opium for one second.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Eye nipples that's fucking a new one. That was not from Ashbury, I don't think.

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, that's not cool. So after a while, Lord Byron switches things up and tasks the group with writing their own horror stories. It's a contest, and whoever creates the most chilling, visceral work wins. So by day, they all go to their respective rooms and pull out their ink pens and they write. And at night, they come back together and they share the works in progress and they give each other feedback.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I love this. I want to do this with my friends, but without so many drugs and alcohol. But without not as many. I don't want to see eyeballs.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Let's not make a rule right now. Let's just, like, see what happens.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Let's not. Let's not go. However.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We don't want to go into eyeball territory. But, yeah, you're right. Well, here's what I think is kind of cool, and I'm giving the credit to Lord Byron, which is everyone's fighting and fucking and doing all this crazy shit. It's like, how about everyone gets creative and puts their work on the paper and just puts their energy that way, and then look what comes out of it. It's wild what comes out of it. So it doesn't seem like Percy, Bysshe, Shelley or Claire contribute much to this little writing group, if anything. Instead, they're working on their own projects that have nothing to do with the horror genre. Lord Byron, meanwhile, takes inspiration from stories he's heard while traveling in Eastern Europe of vampires. But those ones are a little different than our modern vampire. Per the folklore that he heard, they were grotesque and undead corpses that would rise out of their graves at night like zombies and suck the blood of the living. Different kind of monster, sure.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Different flavor.

[Karen Kilgariff]

More of a Roquefort situation with those ones. So he starts a story that he never ends up finishing. But in it, he takes the concept of a vampire and makes it a little sexier. His vampire is a socially intelligent British aristocrat who also has a thirst for blood. But he is able to blend in with the upper class. And he's a romantic.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Imagine that. Who are we talking about? And he's so hot. He's so sexy, so hot.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But essentially, this version of the vampire is actually the one that sticks in our culture from Dracula to Twilight. So that does come from Lord Byron's original idea. So when the rest of the group hears this, they tell Lord Byron he's onto something, but he doesn't listen and he scraps the story. Basically, he doesn't enjoy writing horror or gothic horror, but John Polidori takes it and he makes it his own. And he eventually releases a novella called the Vampire P Y R E. And that is said to be the first English language vampire story ever published.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Was Byron pissed that he fucking copied him?

[Karen Kilgariff]

He doesn't seem like the type. He seems like, he's like, you have mild idea, whatever, and he's got like a kerchief in his hand at all times. But obviously the inarguable winner of this writing contest is 19 year old Mary Shelley, whose entry starts as a short story. It's so compelling that the others urge her to expand it into a novel. And it eventually becomes Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, which is the full title. I never knew that. The condensed refresher that no one needs, but it will be fun to do is that Frankenstein's about a young scientist who makes the very risky decision to play God, designing a creature that looks somewhat human and using electricity to jolt it to life. Frankenstein's creature is born with a kind heart, but he's very lonely and he longs for connection. And he's beaten down by people, people's fear as well as their cruelty toward him. And he's abandoned by his own creator. All the poor treatment hardens the creature until he becomes a monster, just as Frankenstein's abandonment of the creature turns the scientist into a monster. And if you watch Young Frankenstein, that's exactly what happens.

[Georgia Hardstark]

There was a Frankenstein bar that we went to in Edinburgh that was fucking incredible. Edinburgh, Scotland. Ooh.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Did like, did a thing go up.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Every, like, hour, whatever. The monster would come out that like, music would go down and like the crazy ass creepy shit would happen. There's like all these lights. It's a fucking rad bar.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes, that sounds so good. Okay, so as this group leaves Lake Geneva at the end of the summer, Mary does keep working on the story when she gets back to England, but her writing is sidelined once again by even more tragedy. And I have to tell you, there's so many more things I'm going to tell you that are sad that happened in her life. It's like kind of devastating how much bad shit happens to this woman.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Jesus.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So her half sister Fanny, who is a daughter of her mother's from a different relationship, takes her own life. And then weeks after that, Percy's estranged wife Harriet also dies by suicide. So as horrible as all of that is, it does allow Percy and Mary to finally get married, which they weren't. They had Kids together on top of they weren't married. So they finally get married, but Mary is consumed with. With guilt over Harriet's death. The next year, in 1817, she finishes Frankenstein. It's published in January of 1818, on New Year's Day, when she's 20 years old.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Jesus.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's released anonymously, so her name is not on the book in the beginning. And it's a small publisher, not particularly well known. There's only about 500 copies that they put out on very cheap paper and with no fanfare, but people still end up buying it. And then the people who buy it and read it talk about it. And so the word spreads that it's just that good. And some critics love it, some find it distasteful, but it captivates the public's interest. And nothing like it has ever existed before. Frankenstein is as romantic and philosophical as it is horrifying. And it's often called the first science fiction novel. And it just keeps growing in popularity, even getting adapted into incredibly popular stage plays. And because the book includes a dedication to Mary's father, William Godwin, and a preface that's written by Percy, rumors swirl that one of these men are the ones that actually wrote this book. Oh. Mary, meanwhile, stays in the shadows. She doesn't make much off of the popularity of her book. It's not clear how much she actually earns from it. We do know that the bulk of the money goes to the publisher. And of course, there's no copyright protections at the time, so the theatrical productions that use her story don't pay her for it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow. What a bummer.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. And then in 1818, a year after Frankenstein's published, Mary loses another daughter. One year old Clara dies in Mary's arms after contracting dysentery. The year after that, Mary's son William dies of malaria. So these losses compound Mary's existing grief. She goes into a deep depression with Percy writing around this time. Quote, my dearest Mary, wherefore hast thou gone and left me in this dreary world alone? That's a Percy Bish Shelley line. So sad. But the same year, Mary will give birth again, this time to a son named Percy. And he will be the one child that they have that lives to adulthood. Yeah. Tragedy seems to follow the whole villa crew from Lake Geneva. In 1821, John Polidori, the author of the Vampire and Lord Byron's one time physician, takes his own life. He's only 25 years old. It's been speculated he was suffering from depression and felt buried under the weight of his gamut. Then the Shelleys continue to cross paths with Lord Byron, though he does refuse to see Claire, Mary's sister Claire. And he treats her with hostility, even though they have a child together. They have a daughter that Claire named Alba. Lord Byron takes custody of the baby, renames her Allegra, and then cuts Claire off from ever seeing her. It's just like a horrible thing. He takes custody of the baby, but then puts her in foster home, like rotating foster homes, and then in a couple. And when Allegra is five years old, she dies from typhus at the convent. And then Lord Byron dies two years later of a fever. So Claire herself lives to be 80 and of course mourns her daughter for the rest of her life. Then, in 1822, three years after their son Percy is born, 29 year old Percy Bysshe Shelley drowns in Italy when his sailboat gets caught in a storm. So Mary's widowed. She's 25 years old.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Jesus.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And she will live another three decades. She dies when she's 53 of a suspected brain tumor, but she never remarries. The year after Percy's death is when Mary finally reveals that she is the author of Frankenstein. She basically needs money and they're reissuing the novel so she can get some cash. She only receives a small allowance from Percy's family as a widow, and she mostly supports herself and her young son by writing and taking on editing work. But the reveal that Mary is the one who wrote Frankenstein is literally unbelievable to some people, AKA men. Critics immediately try to give the credit to her late husband, thinking there's no way a woman could have written something so dark and layered. But Frankenstein is so unmistakably hers. It is about grief, alienation and guilt, things Mary has felt since childhood. And she even lifts passages from her own personal journal, particularly dispatches about the wet, stormy weather in Lake Geneva during the Year Without a summer. Even the premise itself of generating life from something not living echoes the dream Mary had after her first daughter died. Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I dreamt that my little baby came to life again. That it had been cold and that we rubbed it before the fire and it lived.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right? Both Mary and Frankenstein's monster yearn for the type of unconditional love, a motherly love that they've never had. Frankenstein has been interpreted by many modern scholars as a feminist text, and one that's clearly shaped by Mary's grief and longing for her own mother. I know, right? It's so sad. As biographer Charlotte Gordon puts it, quote, frankenstein is actually a book about women. I would say it's a dystopian novel about a world without mothers and a world without strong women. Unchecked male ambition, says Mary Shelley, is going to wreak havoc on the world.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And that's the story behind one of the greatest works of gothic fiction, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow. Oh, what a fascinating story that I didn't know. I didn't know, right?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, my God.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's incredible.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So good.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So great job. Good job for Halloween especially.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Thank you. And great job marrying McGlashan. Once again, just killing it. So good.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That was incredible. Great job.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Thank you. Well, happy Halloween.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Thank you. Happy Halloween. What are you going to be for Halloween this year? Home.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I think this year I'm going to be a person who's happy got home. I told someone what I was going to be the other day and now I can't remember what it was. What a great joke that I can't remember. What are you going to be for Halloween?

[Georgia Hardstark]

I'm going to be me in a cute Halloween dress with maybe cat ears on, passing out candy to all little kids in our neighborhood. It's my favorite.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Nice. Oh, yeah. You have to go on full on candy duty.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, it's the best.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, enjoy.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Thank you. Last year we counted on a clicker and there was 998 kids before we had. We ran out of candy and had to turn the lights off. I know.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It could have kept going.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. It's insane.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I love it. It's so crazy. Well, I hope everybody that's listening is going to trick or treat their asses off and really enjoy themselves.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's right. Have so much fun. Be safe and watch out for spooky. Spooky. And watch out for volcanoes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. Watch out for teenagers trying to egg your house. It's real. And stay sexy and don't get mercy. Goodbye, Elvis.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Do you want a cookie? We come to this legal system for justice, but we don't always get it. I'm Melissa Malbranche. And I'm Michael Foote. You might know me as everyone's favorite lawyer from TikTok. I'm sick of this whole, like, my life is separate from my job. It ain't. I'm a fierce diva in the courtroom as well as at home. Every week on our podcast, Brief Recess, we take the legal world out of.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The courtroom and into to real life.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like, can your boss actually fire you for what you post online? What happens if ice knocks on your door, or what should you do if you get arrested? At a protest, we break down insane headlines, answer real questions from listeners, and share wild stories about what really happens in court.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Friends, please remember, while Michael is a.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Lawyer, he is not your lawyer. Unless you want to hire me. I mean, that's a different thing. I am Everyone has a price, and I'm actually prudent. She from the Exactly Right Network. Brief Recess premieres on November 13th with new episodes Thursdays. Watch Brief Recess on YouTube. Listen to Brief Recess on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Karen Kilgariff]

This has been an Exactly Right production.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

[Georgia Hardstark]

This episode was mixed by Liana Squillacci.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Our researchers are Maren McGlorin Lashan and Ali Elkin.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Email your hometowns to my favorite murdermail.com.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Follow the show on Instagram at My.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Favorite murder Listen to my favorite murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And now you can watch us on exactly right's YouTube page. While you're there, please like and subscribe. Goodbye.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Get ready to power up your play with Nintendo Switch 2. Power up the visuals with support and.

[Karen Kilgariff]

A bigger, more vivid screen. Power up the fun with exclusive new games like Mario Kart World and Donkey.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Kong bonanza, Nintendo Switch 2 all together, anytime, anywhere.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Games rated E to E10 plus games.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And systems sold separately. Compatible TV required for 4K display.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Make their holiday unforgettable with a gift that says it all. From Pandora to jewelry, a gift that tells a story and shows you know theirs, that doesn't just sparkle but speaks. From new festive charms to forever rings and personal engravings, this season, give a gift that's perfectly theirs. Whether you're shopping for a shiny surprise for your significant other, matching bracelets to celebrate your friendship, or a heartfelt gift for a family member. Say more this holiday season with Pandora. Shop [e-mail] or visit your closest Pandora.

[Georgia Hardstark]

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