The Vampyre Family: Passion, Envy and the Curse of Byron
Author(s): Andrew Stott
In the spring of 1816, Lord Byron was the greatest poet of his generation and the most famous man in Britain, but his personal life was about to erupt. Fleeing his celebrity, notoriety and debts, he sought refuge in Europe, taking his young doctor with him. As an inexperienced medic with literary aspirations of his own, Dr Polidori could not believe his luck. That summer another literary star also arrived in Geneva. With Percy Bysshe Shelley came his lover, Mary and her step-sister Claire Clairmont. For the next three months, this party of young bohemians shared their lives, charged with sexual and artistic tensions. It was a period of extraordinary creativity from which would emerge Frankenstein, the gothic masterpiece of Romantic fiction, Byron's Childe Harold, Shelley's Mont Blanc, and The Vampyre by John Polidori, the first great vampire novel. It was also a time of remarkable drama and emotional turmoil. For Byron and the Shelleys, their stay by the lake would serve to immortalise them in the annals of literary history. But for Claire and Polidori, the Swiss sojourn would scar them forever.
Product Information
A glittering new group biography from the award winning author of The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi
Praise for THE PANTOMIME LIFE OF JOSEPH GRIMALDI: 'Brilliant ... As a portrait of London life in all its mutinous and anarchic variety this book would be hard to beat Spectator * A wonderful book: beautiful, heartbreaking and absolutely fascinating -- Amanda Foreman, author of THE DUCHESS * A fast-paced rumbustious biography ... Stott evokes both the dizzying excitement and the harshness of theatrical life -- Jenny Uglow Observer * [A] great big Christmas pudding of a book, almost over-stuffed with rich and colourful life Guardian 'Book of the Week'
Andrew McConnell Stott is Professor of English at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi, a history of theatre and comedy told through the story of Britain's greatest pantomime clown, was published by Canongate in 2009 and won the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction, the Sheridan Morley Award for Theatre Biography, and the George Freedley Memorial Award. It was a BBC Radio 4 'Book of the Week' and was named by the Guardian as one of its 'Books of the Year.' www.andrewmcconnellstott.com Follow @amstott1789 on Twitter
General Fields
- :
- : Canongate Books Ltd
- : Canongate Books Ltd
- : 01 December 2013
- : 234mm X 153mm
- : United Kingdom
- : 01 December 2013
- : books
Special Fields
- : Andrew Stott
- : Hardback
- : Nov-13
- : 820.9145
- : 464