The Vampyre

by John William Polidori

Overview

"The Vampyre" is a short story written by John William Polidori and is a 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." Polidori's work had an immense impact on contemporary sensibilities and ran through numerous editions and translations

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781627552301
Publisher:	Wilder Publications, Inc.
Publication date:	07/12/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	36
File size:	765 KB

About the Author

John William Polidori was born on September 7, 1795, in London, England, the oldest of eight children. One of the first students at Ampleforth College in 1804, he graduated from the University of Edinburgh as a doctor of medicine at the age of 19.
In 1816, he became the personal physician of Lord Byron, accompanying him on a European tour. There, they met Mary and Percy Shelley, and read aloud from "Tales of the Dead." It was then, that each of them decided to write a ghost story, Mary writing "Frankenstein," and Polidori writing "The Vampyre."
In 1819, the story was published without his permission and mistakenly attributed to Lord Byron. Polidori dies on August 24, 1821, at the age of 25, in London, England. It was a possible suicide, although the verdict was natural causes.