"Before Dracula, there was Lord Ruthven
By COLLEEN LONG
NEW YORK — Turns out that vampires weren’t always as sexy and seductive as Dracula.
Benita Blessing, a history professor at Ohio University, who teaches a popular course called Vampires in Myth and History, says that vampires have existed in myth for centuries. But mostly the creatures preyed on peasants and paupers, and they left the higher reaches of society alone.
According to Blessing, that changed with a tale made famous by association with poet Lord Byron in the 19th century: One night in Switzerland, Lord Byron and his guest Mary Shelly and others were sitting around the fireplace telling ghost stories.
He challenged them all to write a spooky story. From that meeting Shelly produced the famous “Frankenstein.”
A lesser known author named John Polidori penned a poorly written tale about a titular vampire known as Lord Ruthven who was high-class, attractive and smooth in addition to being deadly. His similarities to Byron were striking.
The story was published without an author and people initially thought Byron had wrote it and was making fun of himself.
Polidori, alas, didn’t garner much fame, but his description of a creature with grey flashing eyes who was attractive to the ladies lived on. A short while later, Bram Stoker wrote “Dracula,” and the myth of the vampire changed forever."
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2007/10/11/4568321-ap.htmlI knew the story about how Frankenstein came into being, but had never heard of Polidori's story of Lord Ruthven. I found this interesting.
Author
