Published in 1819, The Vampyre is a novella of romantic, gothic, vampire fiction written by John William Polidori, a young physician who worked for the famous poet Lord Byron. In the novella, Aubrey, a young, wealthy orphan, watches his loved ones fall victim to Lord Ruthven, his elegant and seductive travel companion and a presumed vampire.
The Vampyre was the product of a supernatural story contest between Polidori, the English romantic poets Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, and the novelist Mary Godwin (later Mary Shelley). The contest took place in Geneva, Switzerland in 1816. During the contest Byron told a vampire story, which served as the basis and inspiration for Polidori's The Vampyre. Byron himself published a fragment of the story, but he never finished it. Mary Shelley is said to have won the contest with the publication of Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. A friend of Polidori's submitted the text of The Vampyre anonymously, and the New Monthly Magazine published the story in 1819, attributing its authorship to Lord Byron. The attribution of the story to the famous Byron contributed to its success. However, both Byron and Polidori refuted the attribution in a protracted scandal. Polidori never received payment for his story.
The Vampyre continues to have a lasting influence on the popular genre of vampire fiction. Critics consider the novella to be the first vampire story published in English and they credit Polidori with the invention of the modern vampire. This is because the story transformed the lowly, filthy creatures of popular folk tales into the pale, aristocratic, and irresistibly seductive antiheroes that continue to dominate the genre today. The Vampyre has been widely translated as well as adapted for theatre, television, and film. Polidori's novella inspired Charles Nodier's Le Vampire, which is said to have inspired a "vampire craze" across Europe. The story also influenced one of the most famous contributions to vampire literature, Bram Stoker's Dracula.
