John Polidori's The Vampyre; A Tale was a product of the same ghost-story competition that produced Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein." Set in Italy, Greece, and London, The Vampyre is a reaction to the dominating presence of his employer Lord Byron, and transformed the figure of the vampire from the bestial ghoul of earlier mythologies into the glamorous aristocrat whose violence and sexual allure make him literally a "lady-killer." Polidori's tale introduced the vampire into English fiction, and launched a vampire craze.