John Polidori's classic tale "The Vampyre"(1819), was
a product of the same ghost-story competition that produced Mary
Shelley's Frankenstein. The present volume selects thirteen
other tales of mystery and the macabre, including the works of
James Hogg, J.S. LeFanu, Letitia Landon, Edward Bulwer, and William
Carelton. The introduction surveys the genesis and influence of
"The Vampyre" and its central themes and techniques,
while the Appendices contain material closely associated with its
composition and publication, including Lord Byron's prose
fragment "Augustus Darvell."
`Upon her neck and breast was blood, and upon her throat were the
marks of teeth having opened the vein: - to this the men pointed,
crying, simultaneously struck with horror, "a Vampyre, a
Vampyre!"'
John Polidori's classic tale of the vampyre was a product of
the same ghost-story competition that produced Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein. Set in Italy, Greece, and London, Polidori's
tales is a reaction to the dominating presence of his employer Lord
Byron, and transformed the figure of the vampire from the bestial
ghoul of earlier mythologies into the glamorous aristocrat whose
violence and sexual allure make him literally a
'lady-killer'. Polidori's tale introduced the vampire
into
English fiction, and launched a vampire craze that has never
subsided.
`The Vampyre' was first published in 1819 in the London New
Monthly Magazine. The present volume selects thirteen other tales
of the macabre first published in the leading London and Dublin
magazines between 1819 and 1838, including Edward Bulwer's
chilling account of the doppelganger, Letitia Landon's elegant
reworking of the Gothic romance, William Carleton's terrifying
description of an actual lynching, and James Hogg's ghoulish
exploitation of the cholera epidemic of 1831-2.
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Introduction Note on the Text Select Bibliography Chronology of the Magazines The Vampyre Sir Guy Eveling's Dream Confessions of a Reformed Ribbonman Edward Bulwer The Master of Logan The Victim Some Terrible Letters from Scotland The Curse Life in Death My Hobby - Rather The Red Man Post-Mortem Recollections of a Medical Lecturer The Bride of Lindorf Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess Appendix A: Preliminaries for 'The Vampyre' Appendix B: John Polidori, Note on the Vampyre Appendix C: Lord Byron: 'Augustus Darvell' Biographical Notes, Explanatory Notes
