John Polidori – författare

A triptych of vampire stories to make your blood run cold, in a Little Black Classics edition ‘Twilight, in these southern climates, is almost unknown; immediately the sun sets, night begins’Danger lurks in the dead of night. Written during the infamous gathering that also produced Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, John Polidori’s short story ‘The Vampyre’ travels across countries, twists and turns through treacherous forests, and reveals the perils of staying out after dark. It is accompanied here by two other classic tales of the vampire genre, by Karl Adolf von Waschmann and Bram Stroker.

The first vampire short story in English, The Vampyre by John Polidori, and the first vampire novella, Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, are published together in one hardback volume. The Vampyre (1819) features Lord Ruthven, a deathly pale yet fatally charismatic nobleman who preys on women of high society. It is generally considered as the first fully developed vampire narrative in English literature. Carmilla (1871–2) by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu is a nineteenth-century Gothic novella featuring a protagonist who typifies the long line of female and lesbian vampires in literature, movies, television series and artwork. In a castle deep in the Austrian forest, Laura, a young woman, leads an isolated life with her father. A horse-drawn carriage crashes and an unexpected guest, the mysterious and seductive Carmilla, enters their lives.

`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.

In 1816, also known as “The Year Without a Summer,” a group of pioneering writers gathered at Villa Diodati in Lake Geneva, Switzerland, and wrote some of the most iconic Gothic horror stories in English literature. The Tales of Villa Diodati is the result of a legendary ghost story contest between friends confined indoors by unseasonably dismal weather. “We will each write a story,” proposed Lord Byron. The challenge was the genesis of this blood-chilling anthology blending the macabre, supernatural, and romance.Selections include Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the first true science fiction novel, and John Polidori’s The Vampyre, considered one of the earliest examples of the romantic vampire genre. The story was inspired by Lord Byron’s A Fragment, which is also included, as is Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Fragment of a Ghost Story. These spine-tingling tales have enthralled generations of readers for centuries.