M.J. Rose

Behold, the story behind the first fully realized vampire story in English, John William Polidori’s 1819 story, “The Vampyre.”

(P.S. Lord Byron’s infamy knows no end!)

The Poet, the Physician and the Birth of the Modern Vampire

(The Public Domain Review)

“From that famed night of ghost-stories in a Lake Geneva villa in 1816, as well as Frankenstein’s monster, there arose that other great figure of 19th-century gothic fiction – the vampire – a creation of Lord Byron’s personal physician John Polidori. Andrew McConnell Stott explores how a fractious relationship between Polidori and his poet employer lies behind the tale, with Byron himself providing a model for the blood-sucking aristocratic figure of the legend we are familiar with today…”

For the complete (and irresistible) piece, click here.