Why Are Vampires Said To Fear The Sun?

May 2024 · 1 minute read

Everything changed regarding the representation of vampires in the 19th century, as a succession of popular authors turned to the myth of the bloodsucking creature to explore the societal preoccupations of the day. Everything changed for the vampire figure in 1819, when the young British writer John Polidori took a germ of an idea from his friend Lord Byron — who had conceptualized a vampire tale for a ghost story competition he had entered into with his writer friends, including "Frankenstein" author Mary Shelley, but had failed to write it — and ran with it, creating a suave aristocratic vampire not that dissimilar to the seductive Lord Byron himself.

The idea of a seductive vampire became entrenched later in the century, with the publication of Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla" in 1872, and, of course, Bram Stoker's "Dracula." However, neither of the earlier works contain any suggestion that their title characters feared sunlight, Dracula is actually depicted walking around in daylight, though it is said that his powers are lessened during the day.

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