Byron’s story created the vampire romance genre though
Not Byron. It was Polidori.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_William_Polidori
Edit: Polidori wrote his story based on an abandoned work by Byron.
It was Byron’s story for the competition. Polidori later based a novel on Byron’s story.
What this really tells me is that I should join a writing competition with my wife.
Folks Missing that she beat Lord Byron
Mary Shelley’s actual husband, Percy Shelley, was a poet. Imagine having a career as a professional writer and your wife, who’s never published a work of fiction ever, writes a novel for a competition and becomes so famous for it, your name becomes a footnote in history under hers.
I’m all for supporting the endeavors and success of your spouse, but that still has to sting a little bit.
What a bizarre rant.
Mary Shelley was married to Percy Shelley, a famous poet.
Which doesn’t diminish Mary Shelley’s accomplishments, regardless.
And what if we swapped the genders?
You could do the same to Mileva Marić but that would make you an asshole.
Also kind of ridiculous, because looking deeper into it, Lord Byron wrote “Fragment of a Novel” which seems to be credited as the first vampire themed English literature, though he never finished it.
So literally the competition produced the Vampire and Frankenstein theme in English horror. It’s more interesting to me that a bunch of writers played a little game and basically invented so much.
