About this book
`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 SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
About Unknown Author
Dr. **Polidori** was Lord Byron's personal physician. Upon accompanying Byron on holiday to Switzerland, he participated in a "ghost story" writing exercise.
His own story was met with scorn, but, inspired by the fragment that Byron wrote, Polidori used this base to write was would become the first modern vampire story in the English language.
His character, Lord Ruthven, an aristocratic bloodsucker based on Byron, would be used in English, French and German novels, operas and plays until the character was eclipsed by Stoker's Count Dracula.
Polidori became depressed and indebted due to gambling. His death at the age of 25 was officially classed as natural causes, but it was likely that Polidori committed suicide. There is strong evidence indicating poisoning with cyanide.
Through his sister, Polidori was the uncle to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, co-founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
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