John William Polidori (7 September 1795 24 August 1821) was an English writer and physician. He is known for his associations with the Romantic movement and credited by some as the creator of the vampire genre of fantasy fiction. His most successful work was the 1819 short story, The Vampyre, one of the first vampire stories in English. Although originally and erroneously accredited to Lord Byron, both Byron and Polidori affirmed that the story is Polidori's.