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The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

by John Polidori (Author), (Author), Robert Morrison (Editor), Chris Baldick (Editor) "IT HAPPENED that in the midst of the dissipations attendant upon a London winter, there appeared at the various parties of the leaders of the..." (more)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 312 pages
  • Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks; New edition edition (2 Jul 1998)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0192838946
  • ISBN-13: 978-0192838940
  • Product Dimensions: 19 x 12.7 x 0.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 345,058 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #7 in  Books > Horror > Authors > Authors, A-Z > B > Baldick, Chris
    #9 in  Books > Fiction > Short Stories > Medical
    #61 in  Books > Fiction > Short Stories > World > Welsh

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  • See Complete Table of Contents

Product Description

Product Description

`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.


About the Author

Chris Baldick is Head of English at Goldsmith's College, University of London. Robert Morrison is Associate Professor of English at Acadia University, Canada.
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First Sentence
IT HAPPENED that in the midst of the dissipations attendant upon a London winter, there appeared at the various parties of the leaders of the ton a nobleman, more remarkable for his singularities, than his rank. Read the first page
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars It sucks, 6 Nov 2009
This review is from: The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)
John Polidori was Lord Byron's physician who followed Byron about. The two met up with Percy and Mary Shelley on the shores of Lake Geneva and one night decided upon a ghost story writing competition. Percy and Byron, two of the Romantic movement's shining stars, gave up early on claiming prose was nothing to poetry, but Mary Shelley and John Polidori went ahead. Mary wrote "Frankenstein" while Polidori wrote "The Vampyre", a significantly smaller and less famous story.

"The Vampyre" tells the story of the charismatic Lord Ruthven about Europe with the impressionable Aubrey following him everywhere. Here we notice some of the attributes famous to vampires these days. Ruthven has "irresistible powers of seduction" (p.4), "night gives him power" (p.7), "superhuman strength" (p.8) and the light "disturbs him" (p.8). It's also suggested he has power over minds though that might just be the character's weakness. I'm not going to say Polidori deserves a lot of credit in bringing the vampire into popular culture as his short story is largely forgotten. It was Stoker's novel "Dracula" that combined the attributes of a vampire along with others with a powerful story with a compelling central character. "The Vampyre" serves only as fodder that might have inspired Stoker.

Polidori can't write, his prose is laborious and dull. Even though it's a 20 page short story, "The Vampyre" is a hell of a long tale. The curiosity factor is what keeps this story published and the fact of Polidori's connections to Byron and the vampire myth. Ruthven is clearly Byron who, like Ruthven, travels about Europe "corrupting" young women using his charms. Polidori is the helpless Aubrey who follows Ruthven/Byron about.

The story is: Aubrey follows Ruthven about until after Ruthven kills Aubrey's love in Greece. Aubrey then goes back to England to protect his young sister from Ruthven. Too late, and Aubrey's sister is doomed. The end.

Boring for readers of gothic fiction, unknown and rightly so for the general reader, it's a footnote in the vampire myth and nothing more. For fans of historical gothic fiction only, otherwise you will be tremendously bored.
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