John Polidori
Encyclopedia
John William Polidori was an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

 and physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

 of Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 descent. He is known for his associations with the Romantic movement and credited by some as the creator of the vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...

 genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...

 of fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...

. His most successful work was the 1819 short story, The Vampyre
The Vampyre
"The Vampyre" is a short story or novella written in 1819 by John William Polidori which is a progenitor of the romantic vampire genre of fantasy fiction...

, the first vampire story in English. Although originally and erroneously accredited to Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS , commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement...

, both Byron and Polidori affirmed that the story is Polidori's.

Family

John William Polidori was born in 1795 in London, England, the oldest son of Gaetano Polidori
Gaetano Polidori
Gaetano Polidori was an Italian writer and scholar living in London. He was the son of Agostino Ansano Polidori , a physician and poet who lived and practised in his native Bientina, near Pisa, Tuscany....

, an Italian
Italian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...

 political émigré
Émigré
Émigré is a French term that literally refers to a person who has "migrated out", but often carries a connotation of politico-social self-exile....

 scholar, and Anna Maria Pierce, an English governess. He had three brothers and four sisters.

His sister Frances Polidori married exiled Italian scholar Gabriele Rossetti
Gabriele Rossetti
Gabriele Pasquale Giuseppe Rossetti was an Italian poet and scholar who emigrated to England.Born in Vasto in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the original family of his ancestors was Della Guardia...

, and thus John was the uncle of Maria Francesca Rossetti
Maria Francesca Rossetti
Maria Francesca Rossetti was an English author. She was the sister of artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti as well as William Michael Rossetti and Christina Georgina Rossetti, who dedicated her poem Goblin Market to Maria...

, Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, and was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement,...

, William Michael Rossetti
William Michael Rossetti
William Michael Rossetti was an English writer and critic.-Biography:Born in London, he was a son of immigrant Italian scholar Gabriele Rossetti, and the brother of Maria Francesca Rossetti, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Christina Georgina Rossetti.He was one of the seven founder members of the...

 and Christina Rossetti, though they were born after his death.

Biography

Polidori was one of the earliest pupils at recently established Ampleforth College
Ampleforth College
Ampleforth College in North Yorkshire, England, is the largest Roman Catholic co-educational boarding independent school in the United Kingdom. It opened in 1802, as a boys' school, and is run by the Benedictine monks and lay staff of Ampleforth Abbey...

 from 1804, and in 1810 went up to the University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...

, where he wrote a thesis on sleepwalking and received his degree as a doctor of medicine on 1 August 1815 at the age of 19.

In 1816 Dr. Polidori entered Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS , commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement...

's service as his personal physician, and accompanied Byron on a trip through Europe. Publisher John Murray
John Murray (publisher)
John Murray is an English publisher, renowned for the authors it has published in its history, including Jane Austen, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lord Byron, Charles Lyell, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Herman Melville, and Charles Darwin...

 offered Polidori 500 English pounds to keep a diary of their travels, which Polidori's nephew William Michael Rossetti later edited. At the Villa Diodati
Villa Diodati
The Villa Diodati is a manor in Cologny close to Lake Geneva. It is most famous for having been the summer residence of Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, John Polidori and others in 1816, where the basis for the classical horror stories Frankenstein and The Vampyre was laid.Originally called...

, a house Byron rented by Lake Geneva
Lake Geneva
Lake Geneva or Lake Léman is a lake in Switzerland and France. It is one of the largest lakes in Western Europe. 59.53 % of it comes under the jurisdiction of Switzerland , and 40.47 % under France...

 in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

, the pair met with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin
Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus . She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley...

, and her husband-to-be, Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...

, and their companion (Mary's stepsister) Claire Clairmont
Claire Clairmont
Clara Mary Jane Clairmont , or Claire Clairmont as she was commonly known, was a stepsister of writer Mary Shelley and the mother of Lord Byron's daughter Allegra.-Early life:...

.

One night in June, after the company had read aloud from the Tales of the Dead
Tales of the Dead
Tales of the Dead was an English anthology of horror fiction, published in 1813 by the publishing house White, Cochrane and Co.- Origin :...

, a collection of horror tales, Byron suggested that they each write a ghost story. Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote "A Fragment of a Ghost Story" and wrote down five ghost stories recounted by Matthew Gregory ("Monk") Lewis, published posthumously as the "Journal at Geneva (including ghost stories) and on return to England, 1816", the journal entries beginning on August 18, 1816. Mary Shelley worked on a tale that would later evolve into Frankenstein
Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...

. Byron wrote (and quickly abandoned) a fragment of a story, Fragment of a Novel
Fragment of a Novel
Fragment of a Novel is an unfinished 1819 vampire horror story written by Lord Byron. The story, also known as "A Fragment" and "The Burial: A Fragment", was one of the first in English to feature a vampire theme. The main character was Augustus Darvell. John William Polidori based his novella The...

, about the main character Augustus Darvell, which Polidori used later as the basis for his own tale, "The Vampyre", the first vampire story published in English.

Dismissed by Byron, Polidori travelled in Italy and then returned to England. His story, "The Vampyre
The Vampyre
"The Vampyre" is a short story or novella written in 1819 by John William Polidori which is a progenitor of the romantic vampire genre of fantasy fiction...

", which featured the main character Lord Ruthven
Lord Ruthven (vampire)
Lord Ruthven is a fictional character. First appearing in print in 1816, he was one of the first vampires in English literature.-Origins:There is a genuine title of Lord Ruthven of Freeland which is a subsidiary title of the Earl of Carlisle in the United Kingdom...

, was published in the April 1819 issue of New Monthly Magazine without his permission. Whilst in London he lived on Great Pulteney Street (Soho). Much to both his and Byron's chagrin, "The Vampyre" was released as a new work by Byron. Byron even released his own "Fragment of a Novel" in an attempt to clear up the mess, but, for better or worse, "The Vampyre" continued to be attributed to him.

Polidori's long, Byron-influenced theological poem The Fall of the Angels
The Fall of the Angels
The Fall of the Angels is a Miltonesque epic poem by John William Polidori concerned with the creation of the world.It was published anonymously in 1821 only months before Polidori's suicide. The only known contemporary review of the poem was a negative one, published on May 5, 1821. After...

, was published anonymously in 1821.

He died in London on August 24, 1821, weighed down by depression and gambling debts. Despite strong evidence that he committed suicide by means of prussic acid (cyanide), the coroner gave a verdict of death by natural causes.

Postmortem

His sister Charlotte made a transcription of his Diaries, but censored "peccant passages" and destroyed the original. Based only on the transcription, The Diary of John Polidori was edited by William Michael Rossetti
William Michael Rossetti
William Michael Rossetti was an English writer and critic.-Biography:Born in London, he was a son of immigrant Italian scholar Gabriele Rossetti, and the brother of Maria Francesca Rossetti, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Christina Georgina Rossetti.He was one of the seven founder members of the...

 and first published in 1911 by Elkin Mathews (London). Reprints of this book, The diary of Dr. John William Polidori, 1816, relating to Byron, Shelley, etc. was published by Folcroft Library Editions (Folcroft, Pa.) in 1975, and by Norwood Editions (Norwood, Pa.) in 1978. A 2009 edition has recently been printed by Cornell University.

Novels

He appears as a minor and unsympathetic character in the Tim Powers
Tim Powers
Timothy Thomas "Tim" Powers is an American science fiction and fantasy author. Powers has won the World Fantasy Award twice for his critically acclaimed novels Last Call and Declare...

 horror novel The Stress of Her Regard
The Stress of Her Regard
The Stress of Her Regard is a 1989 horror/fantasy novel by Tim Powers. It was nominated for the 1990 World Fantasy and Locus Awards in 1990, and won a Mythopoeic Award...

(1989), in which Polidori does not write about vampires but becomes directly involved with them.

Paul West's novel "Lord Byron's Doctor" (1989) is a recreation, and ribald fictionalization, of Polidori's diaries. West depicts him as a literary groupie whose attempts to emulate Byron eventually unhinge and destroy him.

Polidori is a central character in the novel The Merciful Women (or Las Piadosas in the original Argentine edition) by Federico Andahazi
Federico Andahazi
Federico Andahazi is an Argentine writer.-Brief:Federico Andahazi was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at Congreso, a very central neighborhood of the city....

. In it, he receives The Vampyre written by the fictional character of Annette Legrand, in exchange for some "favours".

Polidori is also a central character in the novel Gothic Romance (or Bravoure in the original French edition) by Emmanuel Carrère
Emmanuel Carrère
Emmanuel Carrère is a French author, screenwriter and director. He is the son of Louis Édouard Carrère, often known as Louis Carrère d'Encausse after his wife's pen name, and French historian Hélène Carrère d'Encausse....

 which, amongst other things, presents a fictionalised account of the events of 1816. Polidori is also the 'hero' of the novel Imposture (2007) by Benjamin Markovits.

Polidori is again a central character in Peter Ackroyd
Peter Ackroyd
Peter Ackroyd CBE is an English biographer, novelist and critic with a particular interest in the history and culture of London. For his novels about English history and culture and his biographies of, among others, Charles Dickens, T. S. Eliot and Sir Thomas More he won the Somerset Maugham Award...

's novel The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein.

Polidori also appears as an enemy of Lord Byron (who is a vampire) in Tom Holland
Tom Holland (author)
-Biography:Holland was born near Oxford and brought up in the village of Broadchalke near Salisbury, England. His younger brother is the historian and novelist James Holland...

's novel Lord of the Dead and as a character in Howard Brenton
Howard Brenton
-Early years:Brenton was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, son of Methodist minister Donald Henry Brenton and his wife Rose Lilian . He was educated at Chichester High School For Boys and read English Literature at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. In 1964 he was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal...

's play Bloody Poetry
Bloody Poetry
Bloody Poetry is a 1984 play by Howard Brenton centring on the lives of Percy Shelley and his circle.The play had its roots in Brenton's involvement with the small touring company Foco Novo and was the third, and final, show he wrote for them...

(though for some reason Breton calls him William.)

Polidori is also the central character in Derek Marlowe
Derek Marlowe
Derek William Mario Marlowe was an English playwright, novelist, and screenwriter.- Life :Derek Marlowe was born in Perivale, Middlesex, and lived there and in Greenford as a child. His father was Frederick William Marlowe and his mother Helene Alexandroupolos...

's novel A Single Summer With L B, which presents an account (fictionalised) of the summer of 1816.

Film and television

A number of films have depicted John Polidori and the genesis of the Frankenstein and "Vampyre" stories in 1816.
  • Gothic, directed by Ken Russell
    Ken Russell
    Henry Kenneth Alfred "Ken" Russell was an English film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film and for his flamboyant and controversial style. He attracted criticism as being obsessed with sexuality and the church...

     (1986)
  • Haunted Summer directed by Ivan Passer
    Ivan Passer
    Ivan Passer is a Czech-born film director and screenwriter.A significant figure in the Czech New Wave of the mid-1960s, Passer worked closely with Miloš Forman on many of his films, and directed his first feature in 1965...

     (1988)
  • Remando al viento (English title: Rowing with the Wind) directed by Gonzalo Suárez
    Gonzalo Suárez
    Gonzalo Suárez Morilla is a Spanish writer, screenwriter and film director.-Career:In 1963 he published his first novel De cuerpo presente....

     (1988)


His name was also used for a character in a television movie adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel: Frankenstein: The True Story
Frankenstein: The True Story
Frankenstein: The True Story is a 1973 American made-for-television horror film loosely based on the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. It was directed by Jack Smight, and the screenplay was co-written by novelist Christopher Isherwood....

, directed by Jack Smight
Jack Smight
Jack Smight was an American theatre and film director.Smight was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and went to school with future actor Peter Graves...

 (1973).

Dr. John Polidori was the antagonist of "The Post-Modern Prometheus
The Post-Modern Prometheus
"The Post-Modern Prometheus" is the fifth episode of the fifth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It was written and directed by series creator Chris Carter and aired in the United States on November 30, 1997 on the Fox network...

", an X-Files episode from the fifth season; he was portrayed by John O'Hurley
John O'Hurley
John George O'Hurley is an American actor, voice actor, and television personality. He is known for the role of J. Peterman on the NBC sitcom Seinfeld and was the host of the game show Family Feud from 2006 to 2010.-Early life:...

.

In the Highlander: The Series
Highlander: The Series
Highlander: The Series is a fantasy-adventure television series featuring Duncan MacLeod of the Scottish Clan MacLeod, as the Highlander. It was an offshoot and another alternate sequel of the 1986 feature film with a twist: Connor MacLeod did not win the prize and Immortals still exist post-1985...

episode "The Modern Prometheus", which featured Lord Byron, one of the series regulars, Methos
Methos
Methos is a fictional character from the Highlander universe - the film series, the television show Highlander: The Series, and several fiction books. He is an Immortal. He is portrayed by actor Peter Wingfield in both series and the movies. Methos, as one of the The Four Horsemen, represents...

, serves as a stand-in
Stand-in
A stand-in for film and television is a person who substitutes for the actor before filming, for technical purposes such as lighting.Stand-ins are helpful in the initial processes of production. Lighting setup can be a slow and tedious process; during this time the actor will often be somewhere else...

 for Polidori. Methos, who was Immortal
Immortal (Highlander)
Immortals are a group of fictional characters seen in the movies and series of the Highlander franchise. Since they are immune to disease and stop aging after becoming Immortal, they can live forever and they only die when they are beheaded....

, was Byron's mentor, friend and physician, and experienced the same events as the real Polidori did on that (in)famous night.

Also a regular character in the stop-motion animated series Mary Shelley's Frankenhole
Mary Shelley's Frankenhole
Mary Shelley's Frankenhole is a stop-motion animated TV series by Dino Stamatopoulos, creator of Moral Orel. Nine of ten 15-minute episodes have aired on Cartoon Network's late night programming block, Adult Swim. Frankenhole premiered on June 27, 2010.-Premise:Dr...

, where Polidori is portrayed as the immortal lab assistant of Dr. Victor Frankenstein.

Polidori functions as narrator in John Mueter's one-act opera Everlasting Universe and has a speaking role in several scenes.

Works

  • A Medical Inaugural Dissertation which deals with the disease called Oneirodynia, for the degree of Medical Doctor, Edinburgh (1815)
  • On the Punishment of Death (1816)
  • An Essay Upon the Source of Positive Pleasure (1818)
  • The Vampyre: A Tale (1819)
  • Ernestus Berchtold; or, The Modern Oedipus: A Tale (1819)
  • Ximenes, The Wreath and Other Poems (1819)
  • The Fall of the Angels: A Sacred Poem (1821)
  • The Diary of Dr. John William Polidori (1816)
  • Sketches Illustrative Of The Manners And Costumes Of France, Switzerland And Italy (1821)

Sources

  • Nigel Leask, "Polidori, John William (1795–1821)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 30 April 2006

Further reading

  • Christopher Frayling
    Christopher Frayling
    Sir Christopher John Frayling is a British educationalist and writer, known for his study of popular culture.-Biography:Frayling read history at Churchill College, Cambridge and gained a PhD in the study of Jean-Jacques Rousseau...

     Vampyres: Lord Byron to Count Dracula (1992) ISBN 0-571-16792-6
  • Emmanuel Carrère
    Emmanuel Carrère
    Emmanuel Carrère is a French author, screenwriter and director. He is the son of Louis Édouard Carrère, often known as Louis Carrère d'Encausse after his wife's pen name, and French historian Hélène Carrère d'Encausse....

     Gothic Romance, orig. Bravoure (1984) ISBN 0-684-19199-7

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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