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
It was a dark and stormy night. Lord Byron, Mary Godwin (who would soon become Mary Shelley), Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John William Polidori were sheltering inside a Swiss castle reading ghost stories to one another to pass the time. Noting that everyone present had literary aspirations Byron challenge the assembly to each write a ghost story. This night was perhaps the most important literary night in history as both science fiction and vampire literature were birthed. Collected here for the first time are the four works produces as a result of that contest "Fragment Of A Ghost Story" by Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Vampyre" by John William Polidori, "Fragment of a Novel" By Lord Byron, and of course, Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley. With a Foreword by Julian T. Reid and Berl A. Boykin.