John William Polidori

The Vampyre (Annotated) John William Polidori

Differentiated book- It has a historical context with research of the time-The purpose of realizing this historical context is to approach the understanding of a historical epoch from the elements provided by the text. Hence the importance of placing the document in context. It is necessary to unravel what its author or authors have said, how it has been said, when, why and where, always relating it to its historical moment. The summer of 1816, on the shores of Lake Leman, Mary Shelley, Percy B. Shelley, Lord Byron and the doctor of the latter, John William Polidori, each of them promised to write a mystery story similar to those of ghosts with those who entertained their leisure time in that rainy summer. Only the idea of an immortal work emerged from the challenge: Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus. And it also happened that Polidori, already removed from Lord Byron and returned to London, decided to try his luck in the world of letters by publishing his story The Vampire under the name of Byron; he publicly abominated the story while Polidori claimed himself as its author, which was true, although no less true was that he was inspired by the unfinished story that Lord Byron conceived to fulfill that evening. Polidori finally committed suicide in 1821 without having obtained any success in the field of literature, but with that story he established the figure of the vampire as we know it in Western tradition.