A person whose name finds mention in the books about Byron and to some extent in those about
Shelley was John William Polidori M.D. he was Lord Byron's travelling physician in 1816
when his Lordship quitted England soon after the separation from his wife. I who now act as
Editor of his Diary am a nephew of his born after his death. Dr. Polidori figures not very
advantageously in the books concerning Byron and Shelley. He is exhibited as overweening and
petulant too fond of putting himself forward face to face with those two heroes of our
poetical literature and too touchy when either of them declined to take him at his own
estimation I will allow that this judgment of Polidori is so far as it goes substantially
just and that some of the recorded anecdotes of him prove him deficient in self-knowledge
lacking prudence and reserve and ignoring the distinction between a dignified and a
quarrelsome attitude of mind. This book is a reprint of the original work published in 1911.
