Imposture

by Benjamin Markovits

Book Overview

Lord Byron was the greatest writer and most notorious, scandalous lover of his age an irresistible attraction for a sheltered, bookish, and passionate young woman like Eliza Esmond. Eliza believes she's met Byron on the doorstep of his publisher, and that her dreams have come true when he arranges to meet her in secret. But what if the man she believes to be Byron is someone else a look-alike named John Polidori, who once toured Europe as Byron's...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393329739
• ISBN13: 9780393329735
• Release Date: May 2007
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.6" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

"At least for once he was innocent - of what?"

A chance meeting and sly, covetous glance begins this seductive period piece that centers around the riddle of mistaken identify and in the process brings the cause celebre of 19th century London to life. John Polidori, the Italian English physician and writer is thrust into a chance enounter with the idealistic and fanciful Eliza Esmond when they meet one morning on the rainy doorsteps of Lord Byron's publisher Henry Colburn. Eliza automatically assumes that the handsome John is in fact the celebrated poet and author of The Vampyre, the first vampire story to be published in English. Eliza, however, doesn't quite figure that Polidori, has in fact, written the work himself, when three years earlier, he had entered Lord Byron's service as his personal physician and had accompanied Byron on a trip through Europe where they stayed at the Villa Diodati, a house Byron rented by Lake Geneva. It is here, undertaking the chance to further his ambitions that Polidori had met with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and her fiancie Percy Bysshe Shelley, and also Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont, and where the famous novel Frankenstein was born. Well aware of Byon's promiscuous reputation and also his infamous associations, particulary with the Shelley's, Eliza automatically falls under Polidori/Byron's spell, totally enamored and also quite flattered by the possibly that she has at last reconnected with the striking poet. Unfortunately Polidori is not the sort of man to accept his failings and "apt to stick when nothing good could come of sticking," he decides to go along with the pretense, the girl's ridiculous attentions somehow heartening him and her silly delusions proving to be something that he could quite easily perpetuate. Certainly this imposture could work because in the past people have commented that Byron and Polidori are like a youthful mirror" and are much alike. On more than one occasion they had been mistaken for each other. As this hero and heroine are fuelled by their propensity towards artifice and the urge to indulge their impulsive natures, neither prepared to face the truth, the author interlaces his story with Polidori's past as he sinks into the reveries of his travels with Byron. It is here that the kernal of his story began: the first taste of woman's flesh, the night that he spent in Dover with the poet on the eve of their setting forth for France, and also Byron's old friend Hobhouse who openly resented having to chaperone this young and ambitious doctor. Of course, Byron and Polidori do eventually go their separate ways, but not before the physician has engendered a type of sympathy for Byron with regard to the amusement at "playing the part." But Polidoro also learns that everyone needs a pose and a posture to get what one wants, which is why it becomes so easy for him to pass his work off as someone else's and also to lie to the poor, willing Eliza about his identity. Polidori, however doesn't count on the tender feeli

Brilliant

I want to rave about IMPOSTURE, by Benjamin Markvovits. It's a subtle, elegantly-crafted novel about people besotted by Lord Byron. It's the type of novel that astonishes with every sentence. I'm in awe of Markovits: what a writer!

Mistaken identity

How would you like to be mistaken for somebody else? Somebody important, with celebrity? Would you pretend to be that person? Imposture is essentially a story of mistaken identity in which a man, John Polidori, a physician, is mistaken for the poet Lord Byron. With an authentic 19th century prose, Markovits manages to convey a trully authentic experience of the culture and feel of the time. From the time you read about young Eliza Esmond mistaking Polidori for Lord Byron (and he going along with the deception) until the last page, you'll get to see and feel London as it was back then. Markovits had an ambitious subject. He certainly did accomplish to deliver a solid story, but it was definitely missing something. Markovits successfully portrayed Polidori, the physician who corrupted everything he touched; Eliza Esmond, that naive, rather boyish girl with the stubbon bottom lip; and of course, Lord Byron. No, the story and characters were great, what was missing was a good ending. The book ends so abruptly with so many unanswered questions. The reader will definitely want to read more, which can be taken for a good thing, but, again, the story ends so abruptly (and to a degree, underwhelmingly) that the reader won't be able to fully enjoy the story. The end was definitely a dissapointment. Nevertheless, Markovits accomplished to write an authentic and enjoyable novel of faux love and deception. Imposture is a great book for those looking for a quick-read durign the summer. It's engaging, authentic, and beautiful. Overall, a solid novel worth the money and time.

"Whatever he touched, he corrupted."

With brilliant literary sleight of hand, the author spools out a tale of mistaken identity that is both imaginative and poignant, skewering early 19th century London mores and the rigor of class. John Polidori, an inept physician whose patients die more often than not, contracts to travel as the personal physician of poet Lord Byron. Over the course of their year together, Byron meets with a group of literary friends to alleviate the boredom of the continent. One evening, the morning almost upon them, the friends agree to write horror stories on a lark; hence, Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" is born, stimulating the reading public's insatiable appetite for more such gothic tales. Eventually, Polidori strains even the hedonistic Byron's patience and the two part ways, John retuning to London with little money and no prospects, his rooms barren and hardly livable. With some literary ambitions of his own, the physician writes a manuscript, "The Vampyre", which is published by Henry Colburn under the assumption that it is Byron's work. Arriving at Colburn's establishment to demand recompense and own the manuscript, the desperate Polidori is mistaken for Byron by an impressionable, bookish young woman, Eliza Esmond. Unwilling to forego Eliza's misplaced recognition and starving for attention, Polidori indulges in the charade, at least temporarily. Begun with promise and intention deception, the result of the ill-fated romance is ultimately tragic. In revelatory prose, Markovits exposes his character's souls, including the young physician's yearning for Byron's attention, perhaps even seduction, Polidori ruminating over the months spent with the poet, waxing equally nostalgic and resentful. John craves only a small bit of adulation, even through the eyes of a woman who believes him someone else. Although a writer of no little potential, Polidori is a flawed individual, given to indulge his weaknesses, "apt to `stick' when nothing good would come of `sticking', and liable to give in just when something might." Unlike the worldly Byron, Polidori is never at ease with his position, "afflicted by absurdity, sorrow's cousin, once removed." For her part, Eliza is essentially an innocent, her face bearing "the screwed up look of concentrated loneliness, its brave front"; but even she is a fraud, claiming to have preciously met Byron and hiding the nature of her employment. Unbeknown to John or Eliza, neither truly desires to be unmasked, stripped of artifice, both thriving, at least for awhile, on subterfuge. Such heady pretension leading to ultimate confrontation, Polidori and Eliza are victims of their time and place in history, each yearning for a richer, more fulfilling life, but restricted by class and circumstance. Such unlikely lovers are utterly believable in this author's skillful hands, particularly Polidori, who comes so close to realizing his potential, only to be reduced by glaring deficiencies of character. Poignant and compelling, this smal