Vampire Fiction

"Augustus Darvell" or "Fragment of a Novel," (1816) an uncompleted work which laid the groundwork for John Polidori's seminal piece "The Vampyr."

"The Giaour" or "A Fragment of a Turkish Tale," a poem

"The Vampyre" (1819)

"The Vampyre" has been argued to be the most significant and original piece of vampire fiction in the world. And it was the first vampire story ever written by a Westerner. Many of the stereotypes taken for granted in contemporary vampire fiction were original creations of John Polidori. He was the first to create an aristocratic vampire, the first to make the vampire alluring (as opposed to a monster), the first to make the vampire worldly (and specifically an Orientalist) and the first to imbue the vampire with human characteristics. In Lord Ruthven, Polidori set the stage for an explosion of vampire literature.

Many literary historians agree that John Polidori, who was a gifted medical genius and one-time personal physician to Lord Byron, used Lord Byron as the prototype for his fictional vampire, Lord Ruthven. In many ways, Lord Ruthven is a parody of the "legendary" Byron. Ruthven destroys many of his victims through gambling; Byron introduced the young Polidori to gambling. Polidori later wrote a novel called The Modern Oedipus in which gambling debts play a prominent role in the protagonist's untimely demise. In an eerie twist of fate, Polidori himself fell into debt and committed suicide in the house of his father at the age of 25.

Varney the Vampyre (1845)

"The Mysterious Stranger" (1860)

"Carmilla" (1872)

Several film adaptations of Carmilla have been made, but the two most famous are probably the 1932 silent film Vampyr, directed by Carl Th. Dreyer, and the 1960 French film Blood and Roses, although neither of these adaptations are faithful to the novella.

"Good Lady Ducayne" (1896)

Dracula
"Dracula's Guest" (1897)

"Luella Miller" (1903)

"For the Blood is the Life" (1911)

"The Transfer" (1912)

"The Room in the Tower" (1912)

"An Episode of Cathedral History" (1919)

"A Rendezvous in Averoigne" (1931)

"Shambleau" (1933)

"Revelations in Black" (1933)

"School for the Unspeakable" (1937)

"The Drifting Snow" (1939)

"Over the River" (1940)

"The Girl with the Hungry Eyes" (1949)

"The Mindworm" (1950)

"Drink My Blood" (1951)
I am Legend (1954)

"Place of Meeting" (1953)

"The Living Dead" (1967)

"Pages from a Young Girl's Journal" (1975)

"The Werewolf and the Vampire" (1975)

"Love-starved" (1979)
The Soft Whisper of the Dead (1983)

"Cabin 33" (1980)
Hotel Transylvania (1978)
The Palace (1978)
Blood Games (1979)
Path of the Eclipse (1981)
Tempting Fate (1982)
The Saint-Germain Chronicles (1983)

"Unicorn Tapestry" (1980)
The Vampire Tapestry (1980)

"Following the Way" (1982)

"The Sunshine Club" (1983)

"Bite-me-not or, Fleur de Feu" (1984)
Sabella, or the Blood Stone (1980)

"The Men & Women of Rivendale" (1984)

The Black Castle (1978)
The Silver Skull (1979)
Citizen Vampire (1981)

Salem's Lot (1975)

Fevre Dream (1982)

They Thirst (1981)

The Darkangel (1982)

Interview with the Vampire (1976)
The Vampire Lestat (1985)

Vampire Junction (1984)

The Hunger (1981)

Some of Your Blood (1961)

Bloodright, published in Great Britain as Dracula Unborn (1977)
The Revenge of Dracula (1978)
Dracula, My Love (1980)

The Keep (1981)