John William Polidori
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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| - | "June 17.—Went into the town; dined with Shelley etc. here. Went after dinner to a ball at Madame Odier's; where I was introduced to Princess Something and Countess Potocka, Poles, and had with them a long confab. Attempted to dance, but felt such horrid pain was forced to stop. The ghost-stories are begun by all but me. | + | "''[[Fantasmagoriana]]'' has a significant place in the history of [[English literature]]. In the summer of [[1816]] [[Lord Byron]] and [[John William Polidori]] were staying at the [[Villa Diodati]] by [[Lake Geneva]] and were visited by [[Percy Bysshe Shelley]], [[Mary Shelley]] and [[Claire Clairmont]]. Kept [[indoors]] by the "incessant rain" of that "wet, ungenial summer", over three days in June the five turned to reading fantastical stories, including ''Fantasmagoriana'' (in the French edition), and then devising their own tales. Mary Shelley produced what would become ''[[Frankenstein|Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus]]'' and Polidori was inspired by a fragmentary story of Byron's to produce ''[[The Vampyre]]'', the progenitor of the [[romanticism|romantic]] [[vampire]] [[genre]]. Some parts of ''Frankenstein'' are surprisingly similar to those found in ''Fantasmagoriana'' and suggest a direct influence upon Mary Shelley's writing."--Sholem Stein |
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| + | "[[The ghost-stories are begun by all but me]]."--''[[The Diary of Dr. John William Polidori]]'' (1911) by John William Polidori edited by [[William Michael Rossetti]]. | ||
| - | [This date serves to rectify a small point in literary history. We all know that the party at Cologny—consisting of Byron and Polidori on the one hand, and of Shelley and Mrs. Shelley and Miss Clairmont on the other—undertook to write each of them an independent ghost-story, or story of the supernatural; the result being Byron's fragment of The Vampyre, Polidori's complete story of The Vampyre, and Mrs. Shelley's renowned Frankenstein. Shelley and Miss Clairmont proved defaulters. It used to be said that Matthew Gregory Lewis, author of The Monk, had been mixed up in the same project; but this is a mistake, for Lewis only reached the Villa Diodati towards the middle of August. Professor Dowden states as follows: "During a few days of ungenial weather which confined them to the house [by "them" Shelley and the two ladies are evidently meant, and perhaps also Byron and Polidori] some volumes of ghost-stories, Fantasmagoriana, ou Recueil d' Histoires d' Apparitions, de Spectres, Revenans, etc. (a collection translated into French from the German) fell into their hands, and its perusal probably excited and overstrained Shelley's imagination." Professor Dowden then proceeds to narrate an incident connected with Coleridge's Christabel, of which more anon; and he says that immediately after that incident Byron proposed, "We will each write a ghost-story"—a suggestion to which the others assented. It is only fair to observe that Professor Dowden's account corresponds with that which Polidori himself supplied in the proem to his tale of The Vampyre. But Polidori's Diary proves that this is not absolutely correct. The ghost-stories (prompted by the Fantasmagoriana, a poor sort of book) had already been begun by Byron, Shelley, Mrs. Shelley, and Miss Clairmont, not later than June 17, whereas the Christabel incident happened on June 18. Byron's story, as I have already said, was The Vampyre, left a fragment; Shelley's is stated to have been some tale founded on his own early experiences—nothing farther is known of it; Mrs. Shelley's was eventually Frankenstein, but, from the details which have been published as to the first conception of this work, we must assume that what she had begun by June 17 was something different: of Miss Clairmont's story no sort of record remains. | ||
| - | The Countess Potocka, whom Polidori mentions, was a lady belonging to the highest Polish nobility." | ||
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| - | --''[[The Diary of Dr. John William Polidori]]'' (1911) by John William Polidori edited by [[William Michael Rossetti]]. | ||
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"Fantasmagoriana has a significant place in the history of English literature. In the summer of 1816 Lord Byron and John William Polidori were staying at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva and were visited by Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley and Claire Clairmont. Kept indoors by the "incessant rain" of that "wet, ungenial summer", over three days in June the five turned to reading fantastical stories, including Fantasmagoriana (in the French edition), and then devising their own tales. Mary Shelley produced what would become Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus and Polidori was inspired by a fragmentary story of Byron's to produce The Vampyre, the progenitor of the romantic vampire genre. Some parts of Frankenstein are surprisingly similar to those found in Fantasmagoriana and suggest a direct influence upon Mary Shelley's writing."--Sholem Stein "The ghost-stories are begun by all but me."--The Diary of Dr. John William Polidori (1911) by John William Polidori edited by William Michael Rossetti.
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John William Polidori (7 September 1795 – 24 August 1821) was an Italian-English physician and writer, known for his associations with the Romantic movement and credited by some as the creator of the vampire genre of fantasy fiction. His most successful work was the 1819 novel The Vampyre, the first vampire story in English.
