John William Polidori

John William Polidori (1795-1821) was an English physician and writer best known for his pioneering contribution to vampire literature. Serving as the personal physician to Lord Byron, Polidori was present during the celebrated summer of 1816 at Lake Geneva, where a circle of writers including Mary Shelley and Byron proposed a contest to write ghost stories. From that gathering came Polidori's The Vampyre, a work that transformed traditional folklore into the figure of the sophisticated vampire and laid the groundwork for later classics such as Dracula.