The progenitor of the romantic vampire genre.

A new, annotated edition of three of the nineteenth century's best horror stories: "The Vampyre: A Tale" by John William Polidori, 1819 "Carmilla" by J. Sheridan Le Fanu, 1872 "Olalla" by Robert Louis Stevenson, 1885 Includes a brief description of each author and many annotations to explain some of the older or obscure words.

The Vampyre is a short story by John William Polidori. It is based on a fragment written by Lord Byron in 1816 during a gathering of author friends who, trapped inside due to bad weather, decided to write ghost stories. At the request of a friend, Polidori wrote a complete story from the premise outlined in Byron's fragment. Without either author's prior knowledge, the story was published in the April 1819 issue of New Monthly Magazine as "The Vampyre: A Tale by Lord Byron"; despite immediate protests from both Byron and Polidori, the attribution stuck, for a well-known author such as Byron...

"The Vampyre" is a short work of prose fiction written in 1819 by John William Polidori. The work is often viewed as the progenitor of the romantic vampire genre of fantasy fiction. The work is described by Christopher Frayling as "the first story successfully to fuse the disparate elements of vampirism into a coherent literary genre."

John William Polidori es el paradigma del autor devorado por el mito del vampiro. A pesar del indudable valor de su aportacion al imaginario moderno con la creacion de Lord Ruthven, este joven poeta se vio eclipsado por la sombra del genio Lord Byron, quien ironicamente sirvio de modelo para ese mismo vampiro aristocratico. Es por ello que hemos querido reivindicar, a traves de su figura, a todos aquellos autores y narradores que han aportado al genero sin que sus nombres se inscriban en letras de oro, o incluso a veces siendo pasto del olvido. Ese es el espiritu de nuestro Concurso homenaje...

John William Polidori (7 September 1795 - 24 August 1821) was an English writer and physician. He is known for his associations with the Romantic movement and credited by some as the creator of the vampire genre of fantasy fiction. His most successful work was the short story "The Vampyre" (1819), the first published modern vampire story. Although originally and erroneously accredited to Lord Byron, both Byron and Polidori affirmed that the story is Polidori's

The Vampyre is a short story by John William Polidori. It is based on a fragment written by Lord Byron in 1816 during a gathering of author friends who, trapped inside due to bad weather, decided to write ghost stories. At the request of a friend, Polidori wrote a complete story from the premise outlined in Byron's fragment. Without either author's prior knowledge, the story was published in the April 1819 issue of New Monthly Magazine as "The Vampyre: A Tale by Lord Byron"; despite immediate protests from both Byron and Polidori, the attribution stuck, for a well-known author such as Byron...

Excerpt from The Diary of Dr. John William Polidori, 1816: Relating to Byron, Shelley, Etc

One of these writings is the text to a volume, published in 1821, entitled Sketches Illustrative of tile Manners and Costumes of France, Switzerland, ana7 Italy, by R. Bridgens. The name of Polidori is not indeed recorded in this book, but I know as a certainty that he was the writer. One of the designs in the volume shows the costume of women at Lerici just about the time when Shelley was staying there, in the closing months of his life, and a noticeable costume it was. Polidori himself - though I...