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!)

 

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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.

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