George Gordon Byron

Lord Byron was an British poet and author during the early 19th century.

While staying at the Villa Diodati near Lake Geneva in Switzerland in June 1816, Byron challenged his friends Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley and Dr. John Polidori to a competition to see which of them could write the best ghost story. Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein and Polidori's short story "The Vampyre" both came to be written as a result of the competition.

Following the arrival of a seriously wounded Eighth Doctor at the Villa Diodati and his apparent death shortly thereafter, Byron suggested conducting an experiment to determine whether the "corpse" could be reanimated by lightning. While both Mary and Polidori strongly objected, Byron performed the experiment with Percy's assistance.

A younger version of the Eighth Doctor, who arrived after his future self had been revived by the lightning, commented that Lord Byron's look was "very Byronic." (AUDIO: Mary's Story)