SOURCE: "Letter from Dr. Polidori," in The New Monthly Magazine, Vol. XI, No. LXIII, May 1, 1819, p. 332.

In the following letter, Polidori acknowledges Byron's influence but asserts his own authorship of The Vampyre.

MR. EDITOR,

As the person referred to in the Letter from Geneva, prefixed to the Tale of the Vampyre, in your last Number, I beg leave to state, that your correspondent has been mistaken in attributing that tale, in its present form, to Lord Byron. The fact is, that though the groundwork is certainly Lord Byron's, its developement is mine, produced at the request of a lady, who denied the possibility of any thing being drawn from the materials which Lord Byron had said he intended to have employed in the formation of his Ghost story.

I am, &c. JOHN W. POLIDORI.