Before John Polidori—Lord Byron’s doctor—wrote The Vampyre (incidentally, it began at the same retreat where Mary Shelly conceived of Frankenstein), the idea of vampires as nobles who can pass among humans basically didn’t exist. They were more akin to zombies or werewolves, prior to that. Polidori’s Lord Ruthven was a British nobleman based in no small part on Lord Byron. Then a few decades later you get Carmilla, another upper class vampire, this time female. And then just a couple of decades after that, on the cusp of the 20th century, Bram Stoker writes Dracula, the first time we get a vampire who is not just noble but royal, and we get the full furnishings we associate with vampires today. The foreign accent, the castle, the wine (though interestingly, the wine Dracula serves is actually a white wine, not the blood-red we usually think of).

Also fun note: this Saturday marks the start date of Dracula. Over in !vampires@lemmy.zip I’m planning a read-through in real-time, if anyone wants to join me.