John Polidori (PAH-lih-dor-ee)

John William Polidori was born into a cultured Italo-English family, the son of an Italian scholar and an English governess. He showed early brilliance, studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh and earning his doctorate at just nineteen. Yet despite his profession, it was literature that truly stirred his soul. Polidori longed for intellectual glory beyond the physician’s chair—a desire that led him to one of the most infamous literary circles of his age.   In 1816, he accompanied Lord Byron as his personal physician during the now-legendary summer at Lake Geneva—an event that also included Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley. That stormy retreat birthed *Frankenstein*, but Polidori's contribution, *The Vampyre*, marked the first modern vampire tale in English literature. Though originally attributed to Byron, the story was Polidori’s own, blending Gothic horror with aristocratic seduction and setting the tone for centuries of vampire fiction to follow.   Despite this success, Polidori struggled with identity and recognition. He was overshadowed by the larger-than-life personalities around him—Byron in particular—and haunted by personal doubts and financial instability. His attempts to publish more fiction and poetry received little attention, and his medical career faltered amid bouts of melancholy and social alienation. The literary world never fully embraced him in his lifetime, despite the groundbreaking impact of his work.   Polidori died tragically young, but his legacy lingers like a shadow at the edges of every vampire myth. *The Vampyre* paved the way for Dracula, Carmilla, and countless others, transforming the folkloric revenant into a creature of elegance, danger, and tragic allure. In many ways, Polidori was his own creation—doomed, brilliant, and far ahead of his time.