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In 1816, Doctor Polidori accompanied Byron on a trip through Europe. In Geneva, the pair met with [Percy Shelley]?, his wife [Mary Godwin Shelley]?, and their companion [Clair Clairmont]?. One night in June, after the company had read aloud from a collection of horror tales, Byron suggested that they each write a ghost story. Mary Godwin worked on a tale that would later evolve into Frankenstein, and Byron wrote (and quickly abandoned) a fragment of a story, which Polidori used later as inspiration for his own tale. |
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In 1816, Doctor Polidori accompanied Byron on a trip through Europe. In Geneva, Switzerland, the pair met with Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, and her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, and their companion [Clair Clairmont]?. One night in June, after the company had read aloud from a collection of horror tales, Byron suggested that they each write a ghost story. Mary Shelley worked on a tale that would later evolve into Frankenstein. Byron wrote (and quickly abandoned) a fragment of a story, which Polidori used later as inspiration for his own tale. |
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Rather than use the crude, bestial vampire of folklore as a basis for his story, Polidori based his character on his former friend, Lord Byron. Polidori named the character "Lord Ruthven?" as a joke. The name was originally used in [Lady Caroline Lamb]?'s novel Glenarvon?, in which a thinly-disguised Byron figure was also named Lord Ruthven. Polidori's Lord Ruthven was not only the first vampire in English fiction, but was the first fictional vampire in the form we recognize today -- an aristocratic fiend who preyed among high society. |
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Rather than use the crude, bestial vampire of folklore as a basis for his story, Polidori based his character on Byron. Polidori named the character "Lord Ruthven?" as a joke. The name was originally used in [Lady Caroline Lamb]?'s novel Glenarvon?, in which a thinly-disguised Byron figure was also named Lord Ruthven. Polidori's Lord Ruthven was not only the first vampire in English fiction, but was the first fictional vampire in the form we recognize today---an aristocratic fiend who preyed among high society. |
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The text of The Vampyre can be found at http://gothic.vei.net/lordruthven/rvampyre1.htm /Talk? |
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The text of The Vampyre can be found at http://gothic.vei.net/lordruthven/rvampyre1.htm |
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