I've spent the last few days with Lord Byron. The end of the world was coming after all so why not spend it with that dark romanticist who has so inspired the world with the beauty of his poetry?

Perhaps this passage rings a bell.

"But first, on earth as Vampire sent,
Thy corpse shall from its tomb be rent:
Then ghastly haunt thy native place,
And suck the blood of all thy race;
There from thy daughter, sister, wife,
At midnight drain the stream of life;"

The above verse is an excerpt written by Lord Byron after a visit to Turkey where he became enthralled by legends of the Turkish vampire.

My recent obscession stemmed from my reading a book called Lord of the Dead by Tom Holland. Actually, I'm only about half way through the novel but I became so entranced with the main character that I had to take a break to do some research.

Why, after all, had Tom Holland decided to transform Lord Byron, a very real man who died in 1824, into a vampire and Lord of the Underworld?
Am I the only person who did not know the connection?

Well if you were in the dark like me, let me explain. Start by doing a google image search of Lord Byron. Turns out he was quite beautiful. Women adored him. Men too. In fact, the world seemed to adore him despite his addictions to gambling and married women. Some say he really liked his half sister and possibly fathered her child. His mother had to hide from his creditors.

History says he had a temper and was likely bipolar and yet the people he pulled to him throughout his life were inexplicably loyal to him.
In fact, women were known to go completely mad, sometimes nearly starving themselves because they wanted him so badly.

Legend says he glided across a room yet he was born with a club foot. Legend also says a woman could not escape his gaze. He is rumored to have experienced severe mood swings with euphoria followed by profound sadness. Sound familiar? If you're a fan of vampires, it sounds oh so sweetly familiar!

Byron's personal physician, John Polidori was mesmerized with the man. That was back in the day when aristocrats tooks their doctor's on world tours. (why isn't this tradition carried on today?)

John Polidori was so inspired by Lord Byron and one of his unfinished short stories that he wrote his own novella based on Lord Byron himself. The name: The Vampyre. It was the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula.

And who can argue that without Dracula, the western idea of the beautiful but deadly, brooding aristocratic vampire would have never came to be.

So the next time you pick up that wonderfully romantic vampire novel whose main character is that perfect combination of brooding and dangerous, you can thank Lord Byron.

I guess in a way, he's an immortal after all.