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The Vampyre
"The Vampyre" is a short work of prose fiction written in 1819 by John William Polidori taken from the story Lord Byron told as part of a contest among Polidori, Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, and Percy Shelley. The same contest produced the novel ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus''. ''The Vampyre'' is often viewed as the progenitor of the romantic vampire genre of fantasy fiction. The work is described by Christopher Frayling as "the first story successfully to fuse the disparate elements of vampirism into a coherent literary genre." Characters * Lord Ruthven: a suave British nobleman, the vampire * Aubrey: a wealthy young gentleman, an orphan * Ianthe: a beautiful Greek woman Aubrey meets on his journeys with Ruthven * Aubrey's sister: who becomes engaged to the Earl of Marsden * Earl of Marsden: who is also Lord Ruthven Plot Aubrey meets ...
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John William Polidori
John William Polidori (7 September 1795 – 24 August 1821) was a British writer and physician. He is known for his associations with the Romantic movement and credited by some as the creator of the vampire genre of fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ... fiction. His most successful work was the short story "The Vampyre" (1819), the first published Vampire literature, modern vampire story. Although the story was at first erroneously credited to Lord Byron, both Byron and Polidori affirmed that the author was Polidori. Family John William Polidori was born on 7 September 1795 in Westminster, the oldest son of Gaetano Polidori, an Italian political émigré scholar, and his wife Anna Maria Pierce, an English governess. He had three brothers and four sisters. His ...
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Lord Ruthven (vampire)
Lord Ruthven () is a fictional character. First appearing in print in 1819, in John William Polidori's "The Vampyre", he was one of the first vampires in English literature. The name Ruthven was taken from Lady Caroline Lamb's ''Glenarvon'', where it was used as an unflattering parody of Lord Byron, while the character was based on Augustus Darvell from Byron's "Fragment of a Novel". "The Vampyre" was written privately, and published without Polidori's consent, with revisions to the story made by Polidori for an unpublished second edition showing that he planned to change the name from Ruthven to Strongmore. The initial popularity of "The Vampyre" led to the character appearing in many translations and adaptations, including plays and operas, and Ruthven has continued to appear in modern works. Origins There is a genuine title of Lord Ruthven of Freeland in the Peerage of Scotland which is a subsidiary title of the Earl of Carlisle in the United Kingdom. The fictional characters a ...
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Lake Geneva
, image = Lake Geneva by Sentinel-2.jpg , caption = Satellite image , image_bathymetry = , caption_bathymetry = , location = Switzerland, France , coords = , lake_type = Glacial lake , inflow = Rhône, Dranse , outflow = Rhône , catchment = , basin_countries = Switzerland, France , length = , width = , area = , depth = , max-depth = , volume = , residence_time = 11.4 years , shore = , elevation = , islands = Île de Peilz, Château de Chillon, Île de Salagnon, Île de la Harpe, Île Rousseau, Île de Choisi , cities = Geneva (CH), Lausanne (CH), Évian (F), Montreux (CH), Thonon (F), Vevey (CH) (''see list'') , pushpin_map=France Rhône-Alpes#Canton of Vaud#Canton of Valais#Switzerland#France#Alps , pushpin_label_position= bottom , e ...
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Villa Diodati
The Villa Diodati is a mansion in the village of Cologny near Lake Geneva in Switzerland, notable because Lord Byron rented it and stayed there with John Polidori in the summer of 1816. Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley, who had rented a house nearby, were frequent visitors. Because of poor weather, in June 1816 the group famously spent three days together inside the house creating stories to tell each other, two of which were developed into landmark works of the Gothic horror genre: ''Frankenstein'' by Mary Shelley and ''The Vampyre'', the first modern vampire story, by Polidori. Origin Originally called the “Villa Belle Rive”, Byron named it the Villa Diodati after the family that owned it. The family was distantly related to Italian translator Giovanni Diodati, uncle of Charles Diodati, the close friend of poet John Milton. Despite the presence of a plaque at the Villa heralding a supposed visit of Milton in 1638, in fact the villa was not built until 1710, long after M ...
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Climate
Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorological variables that are commonly measured are temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, and precipitation. In a broader sense, climate is the state of the components of the climate system, including the atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, lithosphere and biosphere and the interactions between them. The climate of a location is affected by its latitude/longitude, terrain, altitude, land use and nearby water bodies and their currents. Climates can be classified according to the average and typical variables, most commonly temperature and precipitation. The most widely used classification scheme was the Köppen climate classification. The Thornthwaite system, in use since 1948, incorporates evapotranspiration along with temperature ...
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North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea, and to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean. Because it is on the North American Plate, North American Tectonic Plate, Greenland is included as a part of North America geographically. North America covers an area of about , about 16.5% of Earth's land area and about 4.8% of its total surface. North America is the third-largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa, and the list of continents and continental subregions by population, fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 579 million people in List of sovereign states and dependent territories in North America, 23 independent states, or about 7.5% of the world's population. In Americas (terminology)#Human ge ...
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Year Without A Summer
The year 1816 is known as the Year Without a Summer because of severe climate abnormalities that caused average global temperatures to decrease by . Summer temperatures in Europe were the extreme weather, coldest on record between the years of 1766–2000. This resulted in major food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere. Evidence suggests that the anomaly was predominantly a volcanic winter event caused by the massive 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in April in the Dutch East Indies (known today as Indonesia). This eruption was the largest in at least 1,300 years (after the hypothesized eruption causing the volcanic winter of 536), and was perhaps exacerbated by the 1814 eruption of Mayon in the Philippines. Description The Year Without a Summer was an agricultural disaster. Historian John D. Post has called this "the last great subsistence crisis in the Western world".Evans, RoberBlast from the Past ''Smithsonian Magazine''. July 2002, p. 2 The climatic aberrations of 1816 h ...
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Folklore
Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging from traditional building styles common to the group. Folklore also includes customary lore, taking actions for folk beliefs, the forms and rituals of celebrations such as Christmas and weddings, folk dances and initiation rites. Each one of these, either singly or in combination, is considered a folklore artifact or traditional cultural expression. Just as essential as the form, folklore also encompasses the transmission of these artifacts from one region to another or from one generation to the next. Folklore is not something one can typically gain in a formal school curriculum or study in the fine arts. Instead, these traditions are passed along informally from one individual to another either through verbal instruction or demonstr ...
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Gothic Fiction
Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name is a reference to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of early Gothic novels. The first work to call itself Gothic was Horace Walpole's 1764 novel ''The Castle of Otranto'', later subtitled "A Gothic Story". Subsequent 18th century contributors included Clara Reeve, Ann Radcliffe, William Beckford (novelist), William Thomas Beckford, and Matthew Gregory Lewis, Matthew Lewis. The Gothic influence continued into the early 19th century, works by the Romantic poetry, Romantic poets, and novelists such as Mary Shelley, Charles Maturin, Walter Scott and E. T. A. Hoffmann frequently drew upon gothic motifs in their works. The early Victorian literature, Victorian period continued the use of gothic, in novels by Charles Dickens and the Brontë family, Brontë sisters, as well as works by the American ...
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Glenarvon
''Glenarvon'' was Lady Caroline Lamb's first novel. It created a sensation when published on 9 May 1816. Set in the Irish rebellion of 1798, the book satirized the Whig Holland House circle, while casting a sceptical eye on left-wing politicking. Its rakish title character, Lord Glenarvon, is an unflattering depiction of her ex-lover, Lord Byron. Theme Glenarvon corrupts the innocent young bride Calantha (Caroline herself) leading to their mutual ruin and death. The picture of her husband, William Lamb (the 2nd Viscount Melbourne from 1828), called Lord Avondale in the book, is more favourable, although he too is held to be partly responsible for Calantha's misfortunes: his biographer remarks that the book's message is that Caroline's troubles are everybody else's fault.Lord David Cecil (1965). ''Melbourne''. Pan Books Edition. p. 122. The book is full of wildly improbable melodramatic scenes: Calantha's infant brother, the heir to a dukedom, is apparently murdered on the orders ...
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Lady Caroline Lamb
Lady Caroline Lamb (née Ponsonby; 13 November 1785 – 25 January 1828) was an Anglo-Irish aristocrat and novelist, best known for ''Glenarvon'', a Gothic novel. In 1812 she had an affair with Lord Byron, whom she described as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know". Her husband was The Hon. William Lamb, who after her death became British prime minister. Family background She was the only daughter of Frederick Ponsonby, 3rd Earl of Bessborough, an Anglo-Irish peer, and Henrietta, Countess of Bessborough. She was known as the Honourable Caroline Ponsonby until her father succeeded to the earldom in 1793. While her brother, Frederick Cavendish Ponsonby, was severely injured in the Battle of Waterloo, in the days after the battle she had an affair with the Duke of Wellington. She was related to other leading society ladies, being the niece of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, and cousin (by marriage) of Annabella, Lady Byron. She was related to Sarah Ponsonby, one half o ...
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New Monthly Magazine
''The New Monthly Magazine'' was a British monthly magazine published from 1814 to 1884. It was founded by Henry Colburn and published by him through to 1845. History Colburn and Frederic Shoberl established ''The New Monthly Magazine and Universal Register'' as a "virulently Tory" competitor to Sir Richard Phillips' ''Monthly Magazine'' in 1814. "The double-column format and the comprehensive contents combined the ''Gentleman's Magazine'' with the ''Annual Register''". In its April 1819 issue it published John Polidori's Gothic fiction ''The Vampyre'', the first significant piece of prose vampire literature in English, attributing it to Lord Byron, who partly inspired it. In 1821 Colburn recast the magazine with a more literary and less political focus, retitling it ''The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal''. Nominally edited by the poet Thomas Campbell, most editing fell to the sub-editor Cyrus Redding. Colburn paid contributors well, and they included Sydney Morgan, ...
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