John Polidori (1795–1821) was born in London to an Italian immigrant father and English mother. He studied medicine at Edinburgh University, graduated at the age of just nineteen, and in 1816 became physician to Lord Byron. He accompanied Byron on a tour through Europe, famously spending the summer at the Villa Diodati in Switzerland where they regularly met with the poet Percy Shelley, his partner Mary Godwin (later Shelley), and her half-sister Claire Clairmont. It was here that Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein was inspired, influenced in part by Polidori’s conversation and behavior—as recorded in Polidori’s diary. Although Polidori’s fractious relationship with Byron led them to part ways, they remained on cordial terms until the publication of Polidori’s tale ‘The Vampyre’ in 1819, which was willfully misattributed to Byron by the publisher Henry Colburn. Polidori was attempting to realize his literary ambitions by publishing ‘The Vampyre’, extracts from his diary, a volume of drama and poetry, and a novel begun at Diodati (Ernestus Berchthold; or, The Modern Œdipus). However, the controversy surrounding ‘The Vampyre’ sank his writing career and he published little else. He died by his own hand in 1821.
