He is charming. He is mysterious. And wherever he goes, death follows.
When the young Aubrey meets Lord Ruthven, he is immediately drawn to the enigmatic aristocrat whose cold beauty and strange behaviour conceal something far darker. Their journey across Europe eventually leads them to Greece, where ancient beliefs, whispered stories of vampires, and a terrifying encounter begin to blur the boundary between superstition and reality.
But Ruthven is not so easily escaped.

First published in 1819, John William Polidori’s The Vampyre introduced literature to a new kind of monster: elegant, seductive, aristocratic, and deadly. Born from the same legendary summer at Lake Geneva that inspired Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the tale helped shape the vampire as we know it today.
Before Carmilla. Before Dracula.
There was Lord Ruthven.