Poor Polidori : : A Critical Biography of the Author of The Vampyre / / D.L. Macdonald.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Toronto Press eBook-Package Archive 1933-1999
• VerfasserIn: Macdonald, D.L.,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2016]; ©1991
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (400 p.)

In 1816, John William Polidori travelled to Geneva as Byron's doctor. There he took part in the famous ghost-story project that inspired Frankenstein. As the medical member of the party, he contributed some scientific information to Mary shelley's novel. As a writer, he was the most industrious of the party, producing both a novel of his own, Ernestus Berchtold, and The Vampyre, a tale based on an idea of Byron's. An unscrupulous publisher issued Polidori's tale under Byron's name, thereby ensuring great success for the book, although not for its true author. (Byron fired Polidori as his doctor soon after.) History has not paid Polidori much attention. Although he has figured prominetly in a few novels and films, there has never been a full-length study of his life until now.D.L. Macdonald rectifies the situation with this biography. He explains how Polidori's vampire was created as a caricature of the doctor's employer - the aristocrat, the traveller, the seducer. This version differed entirely from the vampire of folklore. It became extraordinarily influential, and remains essentially the vampire of popular culture today.Polidori's life, through short and unsuccessful, provides an opportunity for a new look at the Romantic period. His very lack of success forced him to engage himself succesfully in medicine, literature, law, politics, philosophy, and religion. In following his course we encounter not only a fascinating character but also a wide cross-section of cultural history.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Part One. Before Byron: 1795-1816 -- 1. Beginnings -- 2. The University of Edinburgh -- 3. Ximenes: The Modern Abraham -- 4. Oneirodynia -- 5. 'On the Punishment of Death' -- Part Two. Byron: 1816 -- 6. Negotiations -- 7. Travels with Byron -- 8. A Star in the Halo of the Moon -- 9. Ghost Stories -- 10. A Series of Slight Quarrels -- Part Three. After Byron: 1816-1821 -- 11. Crossing the Alps -- 12. Milan -- 13. Travels in Italy -- 14. Norwich -- 15. An Essay upon the Source of Positive Pleasure -- 16. London -- 17. The Scandal of The Vampyre -- 18. Ernestus Berchtold; or, The Modern Oedipus -- 19. The Fall of the Angels -- 20. Death and Afterlife -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- Acknowledgments