Джон Уильям Полидори: Врач и пионер жанра вампиров

English writer and physician

John William Polidori (7 September 1795 – 24 August 1821) was a British writer and physician. He is 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 short story "The Vampyre" (1819), the first published modern vampire story. Although the story was at first erroneously credited to Lord Byron, both Byron and Polidori affirmed that the author was Polidori.

John William Polidori was born on 7 September 1795 in Westminster, the eldest son of Gaetano Polidori, an Italian political émigré scholar, and his wife Anna Maria Pierce, an English governess. He had three brothers and four sisters. His sister Frances Polidori married the exiled Italian scholar Gabriele Rossetti, and thus Polidori, posthumously, became the uncle of Maria Francesca Rossetti, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, and Christina Georgina Rossetti. William Michael Rossetti published Polidori's journal in 1911. 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. Polidori's conversation with Percy Bysshe Shelley on 15 June 1816, as recounted in The Diary, is regarded as the origin or genesis of Frankenstein. 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." Dismissed by Byron, Polidori travelled in Italy and then returned to England. His story, "The Vampyre", which featured the main character Lord Ruthven, was published in the April 1819 issue of New Monthly Magazine without his permission. Whilst in London he lived on Great Pulteney Street in Soho. Much to both his and Byron's chagrin, "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.

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 by William Michael Rossetti 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 new edition of The Diary of John William Polidori was reprinted by Cornell University in 2009.

A memorial plaque on Polidori's home at 38 Great Pulteney Street was unveiled on 15 July 1998 by the Italian Ambassador, Paolo Galli.

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

In the Highlander: The Series episode "The Modern Prometheus", which featured Lord Byron, one of the series regulars, Methos, serves as a stand in for Polidori. Methos, who was immortal, 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 series Mary Shelley's Frankenhole, Polidori is a regular character portrayed as the immortal lab assistant of Dr. Victor Frankenstein. Polidori was mentioned in the Tales from the Crypt episode "Ritual". Dr. John Polidori (portrayed by John O'Hurley) was the antagonist of the fifth season The X Files episode, "The Post Modern Prometheus". Polidori was also portrayed by Noah McLaughlin in the 2016 web series A Ungenial Summer, which fictionalized the events of the summer of 1816 in the modern day. In this version, Polidori serves as a personal assistant to Lord Byron, rather than physician. In the episode of CBBC children's television show Horrible Histories entitled Staggering Storytellers, Polidori was portrayed by Jalaal Hartley in the sketch about the original of his story, The Vampyre and Mary Shelley's (portrayed by Jessica Ransom) story Frankenstein while at Lord Byron's Villa Diodati in Switzerland. Polidori is portrayed by Maxim Baldry in the 2020 Doctor Who episode "The Haunting of Villa Diodati", which depicts him as a sleepwalker.