John William Polidori pt1
- katiekrance05
- Nov 17, 2025
- 2 min read
This is the beginning of a research rabbit hole I am going down and taking you with me. This is part one; how many parts there will be is unclear!
John Polidori graduated with his degree as a doctor in medicine at age 19, a stunning feat. His Italian heritage and scholarly drive influenced his interest in the Romantic period, which was prevalent at the time. In 1816, he became Lord Byron's personal physician and travelled extensively; all the while, keeping a well-maintained diary that was later published by his nephew. At the fated rental house in Geneva that found Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, and Claire Clairemont (oh, and Dr. Polidori), the writing competition commenced after reading some German horror tales. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (later Mary Shelley) wrote the beginnings of Frankenstein, which was later published and massively successful; Lord Byron wrote a fragment of a piece, quickly thrown aside; and Percy Shelley wrote Hymn to Intellectual Beauty and Mont Blanc. It really bothers me that Shelley was writing an ode to nature while Wollstonecraft was writing the reanimation of body parts and the monstrosity hiding within the human soul; he was not on the right page.
The scrap that Lord Byron threw aside was picked up by his physician and examined. A Fragment, featured a main character Augustus Darvell, which Polidori adopted to create his own work. He wrote the story at the behest of a Countess of Breuss that he familiarized himself with following his exit from Geneva into Italy. He published The Vampyre to The New Monthly Magazine in April 1819, attributing it to Lord Byron. It was, "the first published modern vampire story in English" (Ondertexts), but the publisher credited the work to Lord Byron, printing his name as the author. Several letters entreating the publisher to quit printing the newspaper with the false author mentioned were sent and argued. Byron himself denied having written it, so credit was finally given to Polidori for his work. The letters themselves were published so as to "exonerate Polidori from the imputation of having planned or connived at literary imposture," (Polidori), yet still the experience stuck with him for the rest of his (relatively short) life. His later works were even published under a false name.
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