Dante Gabriel Rossetti — founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood — had a famous Romantic-era uncle on his mother's side. Who was he?
Frances Polidori — John William's younger sister — married the exiled Italian liberal Gabriele Rossetti in 1826 and had four children: Maria, Dante Gabriel (1828), William Michael, and Christina. Frances preserved her brother's papers after his 1821 suicide; her son William Michael eventually edited the *Diary of Dr. John William Polidori* for publication in 1911. The publication substantially restored Polidori's literary reputation as the inventor of the European literary vampire — the lineage from *The Vampyre* (1819) to *Dracula* (1897) was substantially due to William Michael's editorial work.
Read the full story →Dante Gabriel Rossetti's mother Frances was John William Polidori's younger sister. She preserved her brother's papers after his 1821 suicide. Her son William Michael edited the diary for publication in 1911 — almost a century after the Lake Geneva summer that had produced *The Vampyre*.
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