A strange vortex sucks in my landlord, 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. The first thing that crossed my mind was that I might be dead. But I was patently still here. Although I might not have to pay the next month’s rent. Nor the previous three month’s that I owed. …
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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 my 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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