A fly almost disappears up my nose and I fail to sneeze
John PolidoriChapter 3 in a proposed historical fantasy, The Death of John Polidori.Previous chapter. The door creaked as it cautiously edged inwards. The door had always creaked, but if any door creaked eerily, it was this one. I was often woken in the early hours of the morning by the door singing on its hinges. And …
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A strange vortex sucks in my Mr R–, Constable Sedgewick, myself, and a pigeon
John PolidoriThe second instalment of a speculative account of the death of John William Polidori.Link to first instalment. It crossed my mind that I was dead. How I surveyed the situation I cannot say. I knew I wasn’t imagining things, but at the same time I could not imagine what would happen next. My perception was …
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Polidori’s Date with Destiny: An Elaborate Fiction
John PolidoriBeneath its weight man pauses in his willAnd crouches at the dark-robed phantom’s feet : The Fall of the Angels, To The Deity, John Polidori, 1821 My eyes struggled towards the lazy light from the half-open window. I rolled on the bed delirious, my eyes stared at the wooden floor. I just managed to incline …
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The Temptation of Merlin: A Pre-Raphaelite composition
Dan WildLegend has it that one of Merlin’s protégés was Nimue, or Viviane, Lady of Lake. Merlin and Viviane were instrumental in King Arthur’s ascent to the throne and the formation of Camelot, gathering place of the Knights of the Roundtable. It was the Lady of Lake who bestowed the sword Excalibur on King Arthur. Without …
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The origins of John Polidori and The Vampyre: Byron’s greatest work
Dan WildI really started becoming fascinated with the Shelley-Byron circle during my English honours year at the University of Sydney. My mother read me the poems of Shelley as a teenager and I had already encountered William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge at school. The first wave of English literary romantics were interesting enough. Wordsworth with …
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