Hasn't Changed Much

“The iconography of horror is about as fixed as that of any genre. By comparison, Chinese literature looks positively innovative. There is Frankenstein, and there is Dracula, and then there are various combinations of the two: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the Wolfman, and so on. Both icons made their appearance as literary tropes because of one event in Shelley’s life—and extended house party at the Villa Diodati on the banks of Lake Geneva during the stormy summer of 1816. Frankenstein was modeled on Shelley by Shelley’s second wife; the Vampire was modeled on fellow poet Lord Byron by Byron’s physician John Polidori, who lived vampire-like for a while on Byron’s reputation and finally himself committed suicide.”

Michael E. Jones, Monsters from the Id: The Rise of Horror in Fiction and Film, pg. 95