We are currently writing about the intertwined lives of poet, Lord Byron, and his young Anglo-Italian doctor, John Polidori. They shared the famous summer of 1816 on the shores of Lake Geneva at the Villa Diodati (shown in our photo below).
We have outlined Polidori's life and their complex relationship in an article for Coldnoon, the travel journal. Here is a snippet:
'A small green City of Westminster plaque adorns the wall of 38 Great Pulteney Street in Soho, London; it belatedly commemorates the writing of John William Polidori, the Anglo-Italian doctor who accompanied Lord Byron on his flight into exile in 1816. Polidori haunts the gothic fringes of the Romantic circle who made the year without a summer so memorable in the annals of literary history. Gathered in Geneva, John, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, his soon to be wife, Mary and Claire Clairmont sheltered from the electric storms prompted by the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia. They wrote, they drank, and amused themselves with the telling of stories, which led to the famous challenge issued by Byron: ‘We will each write a ghost story…’ That such a dark summer spawned Frankenstein...'
To read the full piece, click the link below: