John William Polidori (7 September 1795 – 24 August 1821) was a British writer and physician. He is known for his associations with theRomantic movement and credited by some as the creator of thevampiregenre offantasy fiction.
His most successful work was the short story "The Vampyre" (1819), the first publishedmodern vampire story. Although the story was at first erroneously credited toLord Byron, both Byron and Polidori affirmed that the author was Polidori.[1]
John William Polidori was born on 7 September 1795 inWestminster, the eldest son ofGaetano Polidori, an Italian politicalémigré scholar ofGreek descent,[2][3] and his wife Anna Maria Pierce, an English governess. He had three brothers and four sisters.[4]
John Polidori was one of the earliest pupils at the recently establishedAmpleforth College inNorth Yorkshire from 1804. In 1810 he went up to theUniversity of Edinburgh, where he wrote a thesis onsleepwalking and received his degree as a doctor of medicine on 1 August 1815, at the age of 19.[4]
In 1816, which became known as theYear Without a Summer, Polidori enteredLord Byron's service as his personal physician and accompanied him on a trip through Europe. PublisherJohn Murray offered Polidori 500 English pounds to keep a diary of their travels, which Polidori's nephew William Michael Rossetti later edited. At theVilla Diodati, a house Byron rented byLake Geneva in Switzerland, the pair met withMary Wollstonecraft Godwin, her husband-to-be,Percy Bysshe Shelley, and their companion (Mary's stepsister)Claire Clairmont.
One night in June after the company had read aloud fromFantasmagoriana, a French collection of German horror tales, Byron suggested they each write a ghost story. Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote "A Fragment of a Ghost Story" and wrote down five ghost stories recounted byMatthew Gregory "Monk" Lewis, published posthumously as theJournal at Geneva (including ghost stories) and on Return to England, 1816, the journal entries beginning on 18 August 1816. Mary Shelley worked on a tale that would later evolve intoFrankenstein.[5] Byron wrote (and quickly abandoned) a fragment of a story, "A Fragment", featuring the main character Augustus Darvell, which Polidori used later as the basis for his own tale, "The Vampyre", the first published modern vampire story in English.[6]
Polidori's conversation with Percy Bysshe Shelley on 15 June 1816, as recounted inThe Diary, is regarded as the origin or genesis ofFrankenstein. They discussed "the nature of the principle of life": "June 15 - ... Shelley etc. came in the evening ... Afterwards, Shelley and I had a conversation about principles — whether man was to be thought merely an instrument."[7][8]
Dismissed by Byron, Polidori travelled in Italy and then returned to England. His story, "The Vampyre", which featured the main characterLord Ruthven, was published in the April 1819 issue ofNew Monthly Magazine without his permission. Whilst in London he lived on Great Pulteney Street inSoho. Much to both his and Byron'schagrin, "The Vampyre" was released as a new work by Byron. Byron's own vampire story "Fragment of a Novel" or "A Fragment" was published in 1819 in an attempt to clear up the confusion, but, for better or worse, "The Vampyre" continued to be attributed to him.[4]
Polidori's long, Byron-influenced theological poemThe Fall of the Angels was published anonymously in 1821.[4]
John Polidori died at his father's London house on 24 August 1821, weighed down by depression and gambling debts. Despite conjecture from his family that he died by suicide by means ofprussic acid, the coroner gave a verdict of death by natural causes.[9]
His sister Charlotte transcribed Polidori's diaries, but censored "peccant passages" and destroyed the original. Based only on the transcription,The Diary of John Polidori was edited byWilliam Michael Rossetti and first published in 1911 byElkin 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 new edition ofThe Diary of John William Polidori was reprinted by Cornell University in 2009.[13]
Polidori appears as one of several minor characters killed off by Frankenstein's creature inPeter Ackroyd's novelThe Casebook of Victor Frankenstein.[15]
Polidori is a central character inFederico Andahazi's novelThe Merciful Women (Las Piadosas in the original Argentine edition). In it, he receivesThe Vampyre written by the fictional character of Annette Legrand, in exchange for some "favours".[16]
Polidori appears as a character inHoward Brenton's playBloody Poetry (though for some reason Brenton calls him William.)
Polidori is a prominent character and the catalyst in events in Brooklyn Ann's historical paranormal romance novel,Bite Me, Your Grace.
Polidori is a central character inEmmanuel Carrère's 1984 novelGothic Romance (Bravoure in the original French edition), which, amongst other things, presents a fictionalised account of the events of 1816.
Polidori is also the 'hero' of the novelImposture (2007) byBenjamin Markovits.
Polidori is also the central character inDerek Marlowe's novelA Single Summer With L. B., which presents an account (fictionalised) of the summer of 1816.
Polidori appears as a minor and unsympathetic character in theTim Powers' horror novelThe Stress of Her Regard (1989), in which Polidori does not write about vampires but becomes directly involved with them. In Powers' sequel (of sorts),Hide Me Among the Graves (2012), Polidori is a vampire and a central villain menacing the novel's protagonists, his nieces and nephews in the Rossetti family.
Paul West's novelLord 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.[citation needed]
In the musicalMonsters of the Villa Diodati, Polidori is a featured character, along withMary Shelley,Percy Shelley,Lord Byron, andClaire Claremont. The musical, written in 2014, was originally produced by Creative Cauldron at ArtSpace Falls Church in 2015. This atmospheric production reveals the origin story of two legendary Gothic monsters, John Polidori's The Vampyre and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, while exploring their creators' own inner monsters.
In theHighlander: The Series episode "The Modern Prometheus", which featuredLord Byron, one of the series regulars,Methos, serves as astand-in for Polidori. Methos, who wasimmortal, was Byron's mentor, friend, and physician, and experienced the same events as the real Polidori did on that (in)famous night.
In the stop-motion animated seriesMary Shelley's Frankenhole, Polidori is a regular character portrayed as the immortal lab assistant of Dr. Victor Frankenstein.
Polidori was mentioned in theTales from the Crypt episode "Ritual".
Polidori was also portrayed by Noah McLaughlin in the 2016 web seriesA Ungenial Summer, which fictionalized the events of the summer of 1816 in the modern day. In this version, Polidori serves as a personal assistant toLord Byron, rather than physician.
Polidori, John William (2009), Rossetti, William Michael (ed.),The Diary of Dr. John William Polidori, 1816, relating to Byron, Shelley, etc., Cornell,NY: Cornell University Library,ISBN978-1-4297-9503-6.
^Zaturenska, Marya (1970).Selected Poems of Christina Rossetti. Macmillan. p. 5.The Polidoris were Italians of Greek descent and were moderately prosperous. They, too, had fled to England during the revolutionary turmoils in Italy.
Rieger, James. "Dr. Polidori and the Genesis ofFrankenstein."Studies in English Literature 3 (1963): 461–72. The origin ofFrankenstein was in a conversation between John William Polidori and Percy Bysshe Shelley on 15 June 1816.
Rossetti, William Michael,The Diary of Dr. John William Polidori, Elkin Matthews, 1911Retrieved 2 October 2015.
Stott, Andrew McConnell.The Poet and the Vampyre: The Curse of Byron and the Birth of Literature's Greatest Monsters. New York: Canongate/Pegasus, 2013.
The Polidori Files, archived fromthe original on 27 October 2009. The web's first link portal devoted entirely to John William Polidori, author of "The Vampyre".
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