Serial killers, detectives and vampires...oh my!
The last quarter of the 19th century was a hotbed of
literary influence. Not only do we see
the World's most famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes appear upon the
printed page, we have the world's most famous serial killer prowling the
streets of London...add to this blood
sucking monsters and you have the stuff legends are made of...
Bram Stoker, the author who popularized vampires and
set the bar of expectation for horror and blood-sucking nightmares, was not the first to write a vampire
story, but he was the last. Everything since
can trace itself back to this opus magnum of horror. Published in 1897 at the close of the British Century, Dracula was the final piece
of the gothic horror genre that had begun in the mid-teens with a writing
contest between Lord Byron, Mary and Percy Shelley and John Polidori. At least four vampire stories preceded Dracula.
Perhaps some of them influenced Stoker...I'll let you be the judge. This week, I will be presenting five 19th
Century vampire stories for your reading pleasure, from Lord Byron's Fragment of a Novel, the spark that
ignited the flame, culminating in Bram's final masterpiece.
Shall we begin?
Here is a later sixth edition of Stoker's masterwork, as the
first edition is not available online at this time:
***
Carmilla (1871-1872)
Lesbian vampires from the 19th Century...are you kidding
me???
Before the Count departed his castle for the foggy streets of merry old England, there appeared Carmilla,
the story of a lesbian blood sucker preying upon the flower of female
virginity...the blood that is...
Written
by J. Sheridan Le Fanu , Carmilla was
serialized through 1871 and 1872 in the magazine The Dark Blue, appearing in a book of short stories a bit later. It's highly likely this story
had some influence on Stoker...and it certainly is progressive for it's era...
The story breaks down across these first edition issues of The Dark Blue:
Carmilla part 1
pp. 434-448; part 2 pp. 592-606; part 3 pp. 701-714
Carmilla part 4
pp. 59-78
***
Varney the Vampire,
or, the Feast of Blood (1845-1847)
Just dreadful...and it will only cost you a penny!
Varney is the genesis of the "vampire with a
heart" (no pun intended) concept. The
authorship is in dispute, most likely attributable to James Malcolm
Rymer, but Thomas Prest has been cited as well.
The story was published and distributed in cheap pamphlets known as
"penny dreadfuls" in a serial format over the course of the mid
1840's. It fills three volumes of
material and occupies over 800 pages of text. This story is the most influential source for
what we know as the modern vampire genre.
From the fangs, to the cape to the whole "sensitive" and
"resigned to his fate" attitude, we can see Varney in every story
from Dracula and the T.V. program Dark Shadows, to Interview With A Vampire and Twilight.
An original set of the "penny dreadfuls" featuring
Varney the Vampire are not available online
in their original format, but you can still read it digitally...It's not quite
the same as actually looking at an original, but it's better than nothing.
***
The Vampyre (1819)
Fruits of a Gothic slumber party...
Over a number of wet and rainy days in June of 1816, during
what would become known as the "Year Without Summer", five
individuals partied extremely hard at a chateau in Switzerland. There was alcohol for sure, and more than
likely narcotics and sex, along with literary creativity...some very famous
literary creativity. The affair was
hosted by none other than Lord Byron, along with his physician John Polidori,
Percy Shelley and his wife Mary, along with Claire Clairmont, Mary's stepsister
and the mother of Lord Byron's daughter.
During one of those dank and stormy evenings, Fantasmagoriana was read aloud and the contest was on...who, amongst
this collection of avant-garde writers could create the finest work of horror.
One of the products
emerging from this panoply of poisoned pens was Polidori's The Vampyre. It was originally
published as a Lord Byron work, but that was nothing more than an advertising
ploy, seeing as Byron was a known author and Polidori, not so much. The story was influenced by Fragment of a
Novel, Byron's literary contribution to the orgy of horror. Polidori simply took the story and expanded
on the idea...
***
Fragment of a Novel
(1819)
We really don’t know if Lord Byron was going to go anywhere
with this brief beginning, or fragment.
He wrote it in response to that infamous night of sex, drugs and scary
stories all the way back in 1816. It was
published in his book of prose Mazeppa
as a sort of post-script, much to Byron's chagrin. He had merely sent the fragment to his
publisher John Murray as a proposal. He
did not want it set in ink, so to speak, on the printing presses. It was an unfinished sketch...and when it
came out...he was furious.
This short little work is really intriguing, it leaves you
wanting more, yet it is almost complete in the way it makes your imagination
finish what Byron began. It's a nice
appetizer the five course meal that spans almost a century of vampire
literature.
***
Last but not least for those who are interested, this is the book
that really started it all, and titillated those who would lay the groundwork
for Dracula and sow the seeds of Frankenstein...
Fantasmagoriana (1812) Volumes 1 & 2 in French...
...and the translated English version, Tales of the Dead (1813)