 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.John William Polidori was born on 7 September 1795 in London, the oldest son of Gaetano Polidori, an Italian political émigré scholar, and Anna Maria Pierce, an English governess.