Certes, on a fait plus sanguinolent et bien plus inquiétant depuis, mais cette nouvelle est celle qui a popularisé la figure du vampire et a donc un intérêt en tant que telle.
J’ai bien aimé la façon dont la figure du vampire apparaît déjà comme jouisseuse, s’offrant même des voyages en Italie en vogue à l’époque. C’est aussi la notion d’honneur qui est au centre de la nouvelle, puisque c’est l’honneur qui empêche le narrateur de parler et de dénoncer le vampire, vampire qui a lui-même peut-être de l’honneur puisqu’il ne vide la sœur du narrateur de son sang qu’après l’avoir dûment épousée !

La noche del 16 de junio de 1816, en Villa Diodati, junto al lago Leman, en Suiza, Lord Byron sugirió a los Shelley y a Polidori que cada uno escribiese una historia de terror. De ese desafío nacieron El Vampiro y Frankenstein. De hecho, Percy Shelley y Byron no cumplieron su parte, y Polidori escribió primero ¿según palabras de Mary Shelley¿ ¿una idea terrible sobre una mujer con una cabeza convertida en calavera, que recibió tal castigo por espiar a través de una cerradura; algo muy chocante y censurable, he olvidado qué¿. El personaje principal de El Vampiro es Lord Ruthven, aristocrático, sofisticado, misterioso, frío, encantador para las mujeres de los círculos más selectos y bebedor de sangre. No hace falta ser muy sagaz para descubrir en el siniestro, delgado y pálido Lord Ruthven un retrato despiadado de Byron. Que eligiera la figura de un vampiro para descargar su reprimida animadversión hacia el poeta sugiere que era así como Polidori vivía inconscientemente esa relación: con su personalidad vampirizada por el poeta inglés. Esta obra de Polidori es el primer relato de vampiros conocido hasta hoy, fundador de un genéro que trascendió la literatura.

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.