Beautiful cover. Just one story. I can already tell this is a print-on-demand book (look for the little bar code on the back of the last blank page). It will usually even tell you what city, state, and exact date it was printed. I haven't had a lot of luck with p-o-ds since they are usually machine scanned and nobody ever proof reads them. They are usually rife with typos. We'll see. The back cover says, "Dodo Press specializes in the publication and distribution of rare and out-of-print books." which is code for "cheap public domain books." It even has a Dodo colophon that imitates the ubiquitous Penguin trademark. Hey, it was new and 50 cents.

As I feared, fraught with typos and punctuation errors. Corpse is almost always rendered as "corse," the as "tho," commas as ">." The scanner doesn't even have an algorithm to pick the most likely candidate letter. Each page has at least two and some 5 or 6 errors. I can tell from a receipt stuck between pages that the original owner paid almost $12 for this. These p-o-d books are just not worth it unless you get them really cheap, like under a dollar, or you have recourse to nothing else. Favorite error: "...to be present tit the nuptials.."

On to the story itself. Pretty dated story notable for being supposedly the first vampire story. Only story I have ever read that would benefit by being much longer, it reads at times like a synopsis. Ridiculous framing story added not by Polidori about Lord Byron being responsible for the story at the famous Shelly, Shelly, Byron meeting that was the genesis for the real Frankenstein. The names other than Byron's are all made up. For literary historical interest only. ( )

Leggi la mia recensione sul BLOG ! ( )

The Vampyre" is a short work of prose fiction written in 1819 by John William Polidori taken from the story Lord Byron told as part of a contest among Polidori, Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, and Percy Shelley. The same contest produced the novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.

Vampyre by John William Polidori is a 2017 Open Road Media publication. (Originally published in 1819)

I’ve been meaning to read this short story for years. Every fall when I find myself in the mood for a good scary story, I pause to consider this book, then I see the ratings and reviews, and give it a pass. This year, I decided that, because it was written even before Bram Stroker’s vampire masterpiece, I really should check it out. It is such a short story that it would take no time to read it, and then I could decide for myself if the ratings were justified or not.

Honestly, I don’t see why people have judged this book so harshly. It’s subtle, for sure, and it doesn’t have much going on, as far as bloody graphics go.

Still, when one thinks back to the time period the book was written in, and the many rumors that circulated about the ‘undead’, I think the atmosphere was probably unsettling to readers of that time, and it effectively captured a sinister sense of foreboding in an extremely sparse amount of time and space.

I think some modern readers are so jaded and desensitized they have trouble sensing atmospheric nuance. Personally, I thought the book, short as it was, had a few chilling moments- they just weren't dripping in blood and gore...

I'll skip the lecture on how an atmosphere is harder to create because I'm sure it would just fall on deaf ears.


Nevertheless-

The story is too brief to cover more than just the basics of vampire lore- but it does set the stage for the classic tales of the undead that came later, and it is quite apparent these later stories 'borrowed' from this tale- and as such, it deserves its place in history.

Not only that, but the story is also part of the writing challenge between Bryon, Shelley and Polidori- a challenge that produced Shelley’s Frankenstein- so there is that.

The story is fairly simple, not groundbreaking like Shelley's work, by any means, but certainly not as bad as everyone made it sound. ( )

Hitherto, Aubrey had had no opportunity of studying Lord Ruthven's character, and now he found, that, though many more of his actions were exposed to his view, the results offered different conclusions from the apparent motives to his conduct. His companion was profuse in his liberality; -- the idle, the vagabond, and the beggar, received from his hand more than enough to relieve their immediate wants. But Aubrey could not avoid remarking, that it was not upon the virtuous, reduced to indigence by the misfortunes attendant even upon virtue, that he bestowed his alms; -- these were sent from the door with hardly suppressed sneers; but when the profligate came to ask something, not to relieve his wants, but to allow him to wallow in his lust, to sink him still deeper in his iniquity, he was sent away with rich charity. This was, however, attributed by him to the greater importunity of the vicious, which generally prevails over the retiring bashfulness of the virtuous indigent. There was one circumstance about the charity of his Lordship, which was still more impressed upon his mind: all those upon whom it was bestowed, inevitably found that there was a curse upon it, for they were all either led to the scaffold, or sunk to the lowest and the most abject misery.

Mostly, I just wanted Byron to have finished this story. Polidori makes a number of plot changes from the fragment that Byron started that render the events nonsense. Why would the robbers agree to put Ruthven in the moonlight? Why the hell would anyone keep an oath for a year and a day when his sister's life was at stake? Really, makes no sense. The writing is serviceable, but you can see from the density of the above quote about what you're getting into. Meh. (But the pure evil for evil's sake vampire was kind of fun, I will admit. Too bad the narrator is so insufferable.) ( )