We often find our summers disappointing, but spare a thought for our ancestors, still reeling from the end of the Napoleonic wars and subjected in 1816 to constant icy rain, frosts in July, failed crops and waves of disease. They could have no idea of the true cause, an Indonesian volcano.

The fascinating though grim truth about The Year Without a Summer is balanced by the story of that year's astonishing creativity, from the creation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to Turner's dramatic sunsets.

Judith Hedley is a retired secondary school teacher