Dracula: Plots & Schemes: The Legend of Dracula Book III – Review (& Revisit)

Author: Perry Lake

First Published: 2021 (2nd Edition)

Contains spoilers  

The Blurb: Dracula and his vampire hordes plot and scheme to enslave the world and rule the Night!

Dracula hacks and slashes his bloody way to the top of the undead hierarchy as he wages his final battles against the seductive Nycea, and the cunning Erlik Iblis, and the slithering Sethos. Plus the origins of Varney the vampire, Lord Iorga, Lady Lenore, and Countess Dolingen. Will Dracula be able to stop any of them?

There's further clashes with the Vordenburg family in the tale of the son of Dracula—a dhampire! Can the heroic Vordenburgs trust a man in whose veins flows the blood of Dracula?

Then in a novella-length trilogy, set on the eve of the French Revolution, Dracula allies himself to the sorcerer Cagliostro—whose powers are equal to his own! But how long will the alliance last when Dracula sets his sights on Cagliostro's beautiful young wife? Can even the powerful Cagliostro stop Dracula's plans?

Find out in these seventeen stories.

The Review: The revision of Lake’s Dracula Arisen in this volume, like book 1 and book 2, there is modification, changing of order and new stories – a volume in which Dracula perhaps appears less (at least in some stories), becoming more the shadowy force manipulating the board.

The writing in this is Lake’s strongest thus far, with a pleasant crispness to the prose. He throws the kitchen sink concept wise and the blurb above covers a lot of these but doesn’t mention the inclusion of Frankenstein also. The use of Lenore adjusts Gottfried August Bürger’s Lenore (1773), which was quoted within Dracula, and makes it a vampire story, indeed making Dracula the embodiment of death portrayed within.

One aspect I particularly liked was the description of the internal changes when someone is turned, of the growth of a parasitic other within the body (particularly the heart) taking the personality and memories of the victim from the brain but dislodging the soul.

I do need to mention the essay the author has put in the rear of the book, which argues the idea that Stoker was much more aware of Vlad Ţepeş than current thinking suggests, and based the character on him (rather than simply borrowed a name and a paragraph of biography). My own thoughts are in detail here and align with those of the late Elizabeth Miller and there is nothing within the thesis that would shift that position. Ţepeş is a part of the Dracula megatext and thus it is legitimate to use the character within the author’s contribution to the megatext, ie the stories, but the coincidence he focuses on as evidence (between an aspect of Ţepeş’ life and the broad brush of the novel) is more pareidolia than alignment I’d say (sorry Perry) and – in honesty – neither enhances nor detracts from what Lake did with his prose. For that prose (and not impacted by my view on the essay conclusion), a solid 7.5 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Dracula: His Women: The Legend of Dracula, Book II – review (& revisit)

Author: Perry Lake

First Published: 2021 (2nd edition)

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: No woman can resist Dracula—and some will love him forever!

Meet the many brides of Dracula—seductive, inhuman beauties who serve him to spread his unnatural dominion. You will feel their crimson lips glide across your skin, softer than a summer’s breeze. You will feel their fangs pierce your throat.

Gretchen, a common peasant, but of rare beauty—what will she do to gain Dracula's love?

Addhema feeds not on blood, rather, she takes the scalps of beautiful girls, draining them of life and supplying herself with endless disguises!

Katya, a beauty who could seduce any man. But dare she defy Dracula?

Despina, a witch whose powers even vampires fear. How will she deal with the Lord of the Undead?

Elizabeth Báthory, the infamous Blood Countess of Hungary, said to have bathed in the blood of virgins to retain her youth and beauty—forever! Eager to gain power equal to Dracula himself, she strives to enslave and control an army of werewolves.

Clarimonda becomes the courtesan to the most powerful man in France, only to catch Dracula's eye.

Plus the novella-length origin of Countess Mircalla Karnstein—the title character of Sheridan LeFanu's classic tale of horror, “Carmilla”. Desired by both the evil Dracula and the brave Baron Vordenburg, Mircalla finds herself the prize they would both kill to possess. These women will love you to death!

The Review: This is the second revised volume in Perry Lake’s The Legend of Dracula series, following His First Centuries. Like that volume this has been reworked and contains additional stories, and like its previous iteration this strengthens the foundation that was built by the previous volume. I do like the inclusion of Addhema, who was the primary and titular character in Paul Feval’s the Vampire Countess with her peculiar vampirism, where she scalps her victims and wears their hair, through which she takes their lifeforce. Just like the first time around, I really enjoyed the prequel (novella length) entry of Carmilla, which works really well. It is admittedly good to be able to report that the volume held its own, to the first read, and actually was improved by the author's revisit.

The style of the stories is centred round a sense of brevity and yet, partly due to using known characters and partly due to the author’s crafting, the brevity works in the book's favour. It should be noted that the stories do, rightly given the title, concentrate on the female vampires, though Dracula is a consistent presence even when he is not directly in the spotlight.

I noted one continuity error that creeped into one of the new stories but it was minor and hasn’t impacted the score (and I’ve informed the author). A strong volume in the series 7.5 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Vampires: First Blood – Volume 1: The Vampire Lords – review

Editor: James Grant Goldin

First Published: 2019


The blurb: Before Edward…

Before Lestat…

Before Dracula…

These vampires set the stage for all the rest…

Arnold Paul… The ‘real’ vampire of 18th Century Serbia…

Lord Ruthven… the first multi-media vampire star…

Varney… antiheroic prince of the penny dreadfuls…

Count Kostaki… Terror of the Carpathians…

Meet then… and their brothers in blood…

The review: I was contacted by editor James Goldin to see if I wanted to review this volume and the companion volume that focuses on female vampires (and will be subject to a separate review). This volume gathers a variety of 19th century vampire stories (along with a couple of 18th Century entries in reportage and poetry). Of course, all have been in other volumes (indeed these are specifically drawn from public domain). However, gathering them in another volume is not necessarily a bad thing.

Goldin bookends each tale with a commentary, often about the story (or author) specifically and points out some interesting factoids. The shame with this is these are not referenced, for a student of vampire media that would have been useful, and the story's source is not referenced. This is important as these stories can shift and change a little – especially those translated, so if you take the Family of the Vourdalak, I have a Skal translation that says (as per the version in this volume) that a vampire must be staked using aspen but I have a Nikanov translation that suggests ash. What is really useful is the glossary at the end of each entry, which explains words and phrases perhaps unfamiliar to the twenty-first century reader.

The stories included are all important in the genre but I might have put a little less of Varney the Vampire (21 chapters) and actually jumped through the book more (perhaps including the first chapter, the mob scene from early in the series, something from the London Hotel sequence, something from the continental stories and the turning of Clara – though the latter is included in the second volume). I then might have used some of the volume space to add in, perhaps, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs’ Manor or one of the more unusual Le Fanu stories (taking the point that they do not necessarily explicitly involve blood). It was a shame that Tolstoy’s Upir had only a brief excerpt, but also understandable as the editor had been unable to find a public domain translation.

The criticism on content is a personal taste thing, however, and references aside (and to be fair, most compendiums do not reference source/facts), this was worthwhile. It was fun re-reading some of these classics and I always love it when I discover something new and I had not heard of the comedic verse the Thirsty Vampires (1765) by William Hayes. 7 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

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First Impression: Varney the Vampire (or the Feast of Blood)

I was given the opportunity to see the first episode of the web series of Varney the Vampire recently, in advance, as a review piece. I was going to offer you my first impressions but it is a tad difficult as the episode is just over 3 minutes in length and thus the impressions I have are limited.

Richard Dodwell as Varney

It is the opening infamous scene from the Penny Dreadful where Sir Francis Varney (Richard Dodwell) has his toothsome way with Flora Bannerworth (Laura Cannon). I liked the look of Varney and there was a nice atmosphere generated. I understand why the running length would be so curtailed; it is not a unique length for web serials and I imagine the running length of each episode will vary. However you might get more of an impression from the trailer for the series (which I understand will be 28 episodes long). The series begins on the 4th of March 2016.

The series has a Facebook page and a Homepage and the imdb page is here.

Dracula’s Guest: A Connoisseur’s Collection of Victorian Vampire Stories – review

Editor: Michael Sims

First published: 2010

Contains spoilers

The blurb: Before Twilight and True Blood, vampires haunted the nineteenth century, when brilliant writers indulged their bloodthirsty imaginations, culminating in Bram Stoker's legendary 1897 novel, Dracula.

Acclaimed author and anthologist Michael Sims brings together the finest vampire stories of the Victorian era in a unique collection that highlights their cultural variety. Beginning with the supposedly true accounts that captivated Byron and Shelley, the stories range from Aleksei Tolstoy's tale of a vampire family to Fitz James O'Brien's invisible monster to Mary Elizabeth Braddon's rich and sinister widow, Good Lady Ducayne. Sims also includes a nineteenth-century travel tour of Transylvanian superstitions, and finishes the collection with Stoker's own Dracula's Guest - a chapter omitted from his landmark novel.

Vampires captivated Victorian society, and these wonderful stories demonstrate how Romantic and Victorian writers refined the raw ore of peasant superstition into a whole vampire mythology of aristocratic decadence and innocence betrayed.

The review: I am always looking for interesting vampire stories from the 19th Century though, I must confess, that had I not found this volume for a penny on Amazon I probably wouldn’t have bothered. That’s not to say that it is poor – far from it – just that I have so many different anthologies and most of the stories within it. But a penny it was and so I ordered it.

Many of the usual suspects are within this book that isn’t quite what it says on the tin. In a section called Roots, it interestingly carries an extract from Calmet and obvious stories from the Georgian period. The final section, Fruit, is in the Edwardian period. However there are a good number of stories from the Victorian era. Not all are what I would call vampiric. Sim’s may be correct in his thought that Fitz-James O’Brien’s story What Was It? foreshadowed and maybe inspired the Horla but (unlike the latter story) it had no hallmarks of vampirism (bar strangulation – but that isn’t a common hallmark of the literary vampire).

Probably the most interesting couple of stories, for me, came out of the Fruit section as they were new ones on me. Luella Miller by Mary E Wilkins-Freeman is a fantastic energy vampire story that comes out of Massachusetts during the period when exhumations of corpses, as vampires, was still practiced. However Alice and Claude Askew's Aylmer Vance and the Vampire seemed hurried – a whole novel could have been built from the story – but was an interesting tale of vampiric spirit possession.

If you see this cheap or don’t have the stories inside then this is a fine collection. 7.5 out of 10.

Brides of Dracula: the legend of Dracula: Book 2 – review

Author: Perry Lake

Release date: 2014

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Vlad the Impaler was once the most fearsome ruler in Europe. His armies marched against both Turks and Saxons until his enemies assassinated him. But Vlad Dracula rose from the dead, ready to wrest control of a new kingdom, that of the undead legions of the Night.

To his surprise, he discovered the Undead of Europe to be bestial, scattered, and nearly mindless; more akin to zombies than vampires. So he set out to replace them with a new breed of Undead, borne of his blood and taken from only the finest noble houses. Thus Dracula became the sire not of warriors, but elegant and seductive noblewomen whom no man could resist: Lady Katya, Countess Elizabeth Báthory, Countess Mircalla Karnstein, Lady Lenore, Countess Ulrica Dolingen, and others.

You've read Bram Stoker's “Dracula”. Now see how Dracula assembled the most powerful and famous members of his entourage. As part of THE LEGEND OF DRACULA trilogy, this book contains thirteen short stories about the infamous Count and his seductive children of the Night.

Vampires are scary again!

The review: If I came across as harsh when I reviewed book 1 of Perry Lake’s Dracula series then I have to say that it is because I see much potential within the series and hoped by being constructively critical that I might help the author tap that potential.

I have to say that, as a collection of shorts, this volume held itself together more than the first volume. I think the narrow focus on the various brides helped. Indeed one short section, Immortal Love, was impressive as Lake changed voice and showed to advantage the skill in prose that the author is capable of. That’s not to say that I don’t still think that some of the stories suffer from brevity, they do, but many are fleshed further and has allowed Lake to develop the characters in a much stronger way and some sections felt more like longer prose than shorts, which was positive.

I am still not impressed with the cod-mediaeval dialogue that we occasionally get (much less in this volume I thought) but the author commented on my previous review that they are to stay and that is the author’s prerogative.

The volume explores Carmilla’s background, which was done in an interesting way and it is worth looking at the volume for this section alone. The cornucopia of references and borrowed characters continued apace.

The improved characterisation and the more focused knitted plotlines pushed this ahead of book 1 in my opinion and made it a more satisfying read. 6 out of 10.

The Rivals of Dracula – review

Editor: Michel Parry

First published: 1977

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Vampires!

Vampires – those toothy denizens of darkness with their deathly-pale faces and hot-coal eyes and their craving for rich, warm, red blood – have been scaring hell out of people for centuries. Visions of abject terror – of satin-lined opera cloaks and polished black hair, of long twisty fingers beckoning beautiful virgins and turreted castles shrouded in mist and moonlight, of creaking coffins and garlic garlands, of flapping bats’ wings and stakes through the heart – have stirred the imaginations of millions through the ages.

Now, in the brilliantly original collection, you are invited to meet some of the very best vampires ever...

The rivals of Dracula

The review: This is an old anthology and, as well as being cheap second hand, I hoped there might be a rare tale or two in it.

The introduction by Michel Parry is woefully out of date, it mentions a more definitive connection between Dracula and Vlad Ţepeş than there actually is, it mentions penny dreadful stories that have now been proven not to exist, it gets the authorship of Varney the Vampire wrong… but all of the above is simply a product of the time.

The volume is thin and some of the stories are newer than I’d have liked – with the title Rivals of Dracula I was hoping for older or contemporary tales. The Anonymously penned the Mysterious Stranger is such a tale – translated from German into English in 1854. It is a marvellous tale and I should feature it as an interesting short at some point (in the meantime I do look at it in my volume The Media Vampire.) E & H Heron’s the Story of Baelbrow is from 1898 and is particularly interesting as it combines an Egyptian Mummy with vampire lore. The house is haunted by a ghost, vampiric in nature but non-corporeal until it is able to possess the mummy’s remains.

The other tales run from M.R. James’ 1904 piece Count Magnus, though whether that is actually a vampire tale is debatable, through to the 70s. A favourite piece was the Undead Die (1948) by E Everett Evans – this has love overcoming monstrosity and the vampires are also called lamia within it. Manly Wade Wellman reminds us, in the Horror Undying (1936), that “A werewolf, if killed and left unburnt, would rise from death, and rise to be a blood-drinking vampire.”

Though thin, the stories are well chosen and there are some unusual entries in the collection that perhaps do not show up in every collection of shorts. The legend on the cover declaring “A century of vampire fiction” was a misnomer, of course, as there was a story dated before 1877, as mentioned above. Worth having, however, and I love the manbat cover. 7 out of 10.

Metamorphoses of the Vampire in Literature and Film: Cultural Transformations in Europe, 1732-1933 – review

Author: Erik Butler

Release Date: 2010

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: For the last three hundred years, fictions of the vampire have fed off anxieties about cultural continuity. Though commonly represented as a parasitic aggressor from without, the vampire is in fact a native of Europe, and its "metamorphoses," to quote Baudelaire, a distorted image of social transformation. Because the vampire grows strong whenever and wherever traditions weaken, its representations have multiplied with every political, economic, and technological revolution from the eighteenth century on. Today, in the age of globalization, vampire fictions are more virulent than ever, and the monster enjoys hunting grounds as vast as the international market.

Metamorphoses of the Vampire explains why representations of vampirism began in the eighteenth century, flourished in the nineteenth, and came to eclipse nearly all other forms of monstrosity in the early twentieth century. Many of the works by French and German authors discussed here have never been presented to students and scholars in the English-speaking world. While there are many excellent studies that examine Victorian vampires, the undead in cinema, contemporary vampire fictions, and the vampire in folklore, until now no work has attempted to account for the unifying logic that underlies the vampire's many and often apparently contradictory forms.

The review: It is a singularly impressively difficult task to undertake; attempting to “account for the unifying logic that underlies the vampire's many and often apparently contradictory forms.” A Grand Unified Theory of the media vampire, so to speak.

In truth Butler does not succeed, in my opinion anyway, which is not to say that this book is without merit – indeed it is brimming with merit. I just think that such a theory, such a logic is ethereal – running from the light like Nosferatu at dawn and obfuscated by each piece of literature, theatre or film that does not fit in with the logic.

However Butler takes us on a fascinating jaunt through the hubbub of the media vampire drawing into parallel with cultural changes in Europe. The date range should have kept us firmly away from the burgeoning Hollywood vampire but it does rear its head on occasion.

Interesting to me was some of the sources that I had not come across before. Potocki’s The Manuscript Found in Saragossa is now in the “to read” pile as is Memoires of my Nervous Illness. The latter by Schreber has a chapter built around it and, whilst I believe that its association with vampirism might prove to be less overt, I find the idea of it fascinating.

This is not a book, however, for the casual reader. Butler has a PhD in comparative Literature and thus this volume is very scholarly – not that it should put you off, and his style prevents the contents from becoming dry, but the warning is there. Indexing, citation lists and notes are all present and correct allowing the student to use the volume properly as a source itself. 7.5 out of 10.

Written in Blood: A Cultural History of the British Vampire – review

Author: Paul Adams

First Published: 2014

The blurb: The British Isles has a remarkable association with vampires – chilling supernatural creatures of the night. From the nineteenth-century writings of John Polidori, James Rymer, Sheridan Le Fanu and Bram Stoker, to the modern literary horrors of Clive Barker, Ramsey Campbell, Brian Lumley and Kim Newman, the vampire casts a strange and compelling shadow that spreads from the realms of fantasy into the world of the living. Here you will find vampire murderers and vampire hunters together with the real-life mysteries of Croglin Grange, Alnwick Castle, the Vampire of the Villas, the Yorkshire Vampire and the enduring phenomenon of London’s famous Highgate Vampire.

In this thought-provoking book, illustrated with never before seen photographs and drawing on extensive original research, writer and paranormal historian Paul Adams explores the fascinating history of British vampirism in both fact and fiction. With extensive chapters on the post-war revival of Gothic cinema horror and the influence of cult studio Hammer Films on the vampire in British television and music, here is a modern guide where every page is truly written in blood…

The review: Paul Adams takes us on a whistle-stop tour of vampirism as it ties in to British culture, running the gamut from 1816 to 2013 and looking at everything from Penny Dreadfuls through to Hammer films and beyond. He looks at legends (such as Croglin Grange) and some of the earlier appearances of the restless dead (as recorded by William of Newburgh and Walter Map). He touches on continental Europe, of course, and delves into vampire murderers – which does see him veering off the Isles as well as into general occult orientated killings, I think as a need to pad out what would have been a thin chapter had he remained in Britain.

Mostly I found his writing balanced, the discussion of the Highgate Vampire steered a fair line between the two primary personalities involved in the case without fawning over either. The book is quite tabloid in its brevity, in places, but Adams chose to write an overview – each chapter may have generated a reference book of its own. The writing style is chatty and engaging but the book does have a bibliography and indexing, allowing further reading into the subjects.

Given the general balance shown, I found it (possibly unfairly) unfortunate that he had not unearthed the potential controversy surrounding the authenticity of the Penny Dreadful story, The Skeleton Count, or, the Vampire Mistress. But, then again, my own reference bookdid not pick up on this when written. More unfortunate was the continued association between Count Dracula and Prince Vlad III. Adams’ suggests that Stoker “immersed himself in the history of the Wallachian warrior knights Vlad Dracul (d 1447) and his son…” but there is absolutely no evidence of this. For more on this please see my article. That aside the balance in the book – when looking at competing theories, was well maintained.

All in all, a fine primer on a plethora of vampire related topics. 7.5 out of 10.

Penny Dreadful – season 1 – review

Director: Various

First aired: 2014

Contains spoilers

When I reviewed season 1 (and only) of Dracula I had seen episode 1 of this series but was moved to say, in comparison to the older series, “the dark, griminess of Penny Dreadful’s London was a million time more effective”. I stick by that, indeed the series had a huge amount going for it – though it might have been better in some ways.

Chandler, Murray and Ives

In many respect this Monster Mash series was reminiscent of the league of Extraordinary Gentlemen though the steampunkiness of the Alan Moore series was gone. We did, however, get representation from vampires and Dr Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway, The Disappeared). We got characters from the Dracula novel, though they were moved and changed around, and we got Dorian Gray (Reeve Carney). We also got an American gunslinger, Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett, 30 Days of Night), a consumptive whore, Brona Croft (Billie Piper, Secret Diary of a Call Girl), and a fortune teller who was sensitive to possession, Vanessa Ives (Eva Green, Dark Shadows).

Master Vampire

Now I mentioned Dracula characters and we start off with a new character tied into that mythos in the form of explorer Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton). He is the father of Mina Harker nee Murray (Olivia Llewellyn) and she has been taken by vampires. We never actually meet her husband but the first episode sees Vanessa Ives hiring Ethan Chandler on Sir Malcolm’s behalf as they need a man good with guns. It sees them go beneath an opium den as they believe there to be a vampire nest there. We meet three types of vampire. There are the first they meet, servants of the master, who are male and look mostly human (and I never noticed them displaying fangs). There are what I might term as brides, females with their hair shockingly white and with fangs and then there is the main vampire, a bestial, clawed creature with red eyes and rows of sharpened teeth. They overcome these first vampires but Mina is not there and they realise that there is another master.

tattoo

They take the killed master vampire to the resurrectionists – looking for a surgeon who can autopsy it - and meet Victor Frankenstein. He tells them that the skin is more like an exoskeleton. When he peels it back there appears to be tattooing on the exposed body, which depicts scenes from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, this leads to an Egyptian Mythology sub-plot that is left dangling at the end of the series. Later they clean off the exoskeleton with flesh eating beetles, but as it is flesh below that is tattoo’d this didn’t make too much sense to me as one would have expected the beetles to eat down to the bone. Actually as things roll on we realise that the so called masters are themselves more an elite level of minion – there is a master vampire whom we do not see in the season (but whom I assume would be Dracula himself).

David Warner as Van Helsing

The other Dracula character we meet is Van Helsing (David Warner, The Hunger: Nunc Dimittis, From Beyond the Grave, Waxwork, Nightwing, Cast a Deadly Spell, Spider-Man & I Was a Teenage Vampire). In this Van Helsing is a haematologist consulting with Frankenstein and is well aware of vampires (his wife was taken by one). He introduces Frankenstein to the penny dreadful Varney the Vampire, suggesting the Rymer accidentally got much of the detail right. I'm not too sure about that statement as Varney was the first complex vampire character but the little we see of these vampires indicates brutal and animalistic killers. Talking of Varney and placing the penny dreadful in a series of the same name, the series does throw in little conceits like that - for instance Frankenstein mentions the poetry of Shelley.

Harry Treadaway as Frankenstein

Frankenstein, of course, has issues with his own creation – Caliban (Rory Kinnear). Dorian Gray’s presence was slightly incongruous and I felt the character could have been used a little better (he is somewhat of an iconoclast but underused and we never get to see the damned portrait). Murray’s servant Sembene (Danny Sapani) was too mysterious and demanded further scrutiny and background. The series had moments of genius – an episode dedicated to the background of Vanessa Ives was disturbingly excellent in places – but other parts seemed a little too convenient, especially the coincidental interactions and acquaintances of these people from different social strata. In trying to build mysteries, perhaps some things were under-explored or (in one case) almost forgotten until the very end of the series and just touched upon. Perhaps they simply had thrown too much into the pot?

a vampire bride

A sense of time sometimes got lost. One episode concerning a possession failed to offer any idea of how much time had passed but then we discover that Gray had time to do a trip over to continental Europe while things were going on. The acting was generally very good – though Billie Piper’s Irish accent did slip occasionally – but the main star, to me, was the City of London (or Dublin, as that was where this was filmed!) because the palpable oppressive atmosphere was a constant through the show. I did enjoy Penny Dreadful, it just felt a little unpolished in places (around what they were doing with certain threads) and might have been even better than it was. However it deserves a strong 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Reading the Vampire – review

Author: Ken Gelder

First published: 1994

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Insatiable bloodlust, dangerous sexualities, the horror of the undead, uncharted Transylvanian wildernesses, and a morbid fascination with the `other': the legend of the vampire continues to haunt popular imagination.

Reading the Vampire examines the vampire in all its various manifestations and cultural meanings. Ken Gelder investigates vampire narratives in literature and in film, from early vampire stories like Sheridan Le Fanu's `lesbian vampire' tale Carmilla and Bram Stoker's Dracula, the most famous vampire narrative of all, to contemporary American vampire blockbusters by Stephen King and others, the vampire chronicles of Anne Rice, `post-Ceausescu' vampire narratives, and films such as FW Murnau's Nosferatu and Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Reading the Vampire embeds vampires in their cultural contexts, showing vampire narratives feeding off the anxieties and fascinations of their times: from the nineteenth century perils of tourism, issues of colonialism and national identity, and obsessions with sex and death, to the `queer' identity of the vampire or current vampiric metaphors for dangerous exchanges of bodily fluids and AIDS.

The Review: I bought Reading the Vampire purely on the basis of having read, and thoroughly enjoyed, Gelder’s New Vampire Cinema. Of course, whilst this is a discussion of vampire literature, it couldn’t help but stray into a discussion about cinema but primarily this is the literary companion of the later cinema book.

As well as looking at Carmilla and Dracula the book explores an ethnocentric look at vampire literature and the influence of Greek lore on Polidori and Byron. It explores the works of Anne Rice, Stephen King, Dan Simmons, Brian Aldiss and S P Somtow. There is a Marxist examination of vampire literature and a look at Carmilla in terms of the uncanny.

This was not as immediately accessible as the later cinema book. This is down to, I believe, a more  academic-centric approach to the work as Gelder looks at vampire literature in terms of literary theory. That is not a criticism but the later book, whilst academically thorough, was more lay-reader friendly and the approach herein might put off the more casual reader, especially if some of the academic research is unfamiliar.

That said, it is an important book for the library of the student of the media vampire. 7.5 out of 10.

Classic Literature: Varney the Vampire

“Presently the corpse opened his eyes and glared full at them. Oh, such glistening, lead-like orbs, that froze the very current of their blood”
Varney the Vampire, Chapter 143

I must admit that to feature “Varney the Vampire. or, the Feast of Blood”, which was written by James Malcolm Rymer, as a piece of classic literature is, for a couple of reasons, a bit of an oxymoron.

Firstly, the work is not that well known, which makes it difficult to argue its classic status. There are no films directly based on the saga that I am aware of and the name of Varney is seldom borrowed (though there are exceptions that prove that rule). I am sure that many will say they have heard of Varney and its central figure Sir Francis Varney but how many can say they have read it, at least in entirety? For myself I had read extracts certainly and had the complete work in pdf form. But it is such a large tome that there was no way I was going to read it electronically. This article came about after I purchased the critical edition produced by Curt Herr, and yes, I did read the entire saga before writing this.

Secondly it is difficult to call Varney classic literature when by all standards it isn’t really that good in a literary sense. Don’t get me wrong, it was never meant to be. Varney started life as a serial of Penny Dreadfuls and was published as such between 1845 and 1847. In many respects Penny Dreadfuls were the literary equivalent to soap operas, produced weekly and sold for a penny an issue, and one can see within them that awful repetition and meandering that the modern TV phenomenon is also full of. They were also produced by writers often paid by the word (leading to more literary meandering) and rarely, if ever, proof read. Typesetting errors and typographical errors were the norm.

Varney ran for an inordinate length of time, when such a serial could be cancelled at a moment’s notice – if the readership lost interest and thus they were not turning the required profit. As such we find that the text itself is self contradictory in lore, events are forgotten and names become confused. However, the worst sins within Varney are in the early to central chapters and the last third of the saga has much to offer, as Herr himself points out. That is not to say that there isn’t anything worth reading in the first two thirds of the mammoth publication, but that the worst excesses of the Penny Dreadful genre are played out in that section.

However Varney, from a vampire genre sense, is classic literature in that it very much bridges the gap between Polidori’s The Vampyre and Stoker’s Dracula (As an aside we actually have a character called Count Pollidori at one point). We can see the definitive influence Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla had on Stoker and, whilst there is no evidence that Stoker had read any/all of Varney, it is difficult to imagine that Stoker was unaware of the saga.

Indeed Herr points out, in the footnotes to the critical edition, that the turning of Clara Crofton – towards the end of the saga – has many similes with the events surrounding Lucy Westenra in Dracula. The turning itself seems slightly at odds with the lore Rymer introduced (as we shall see) but that is hardly surprising in itself. There is a beautiful description; “and in another moment that white clothing was observed to be in motion. Slowly the dead form that was there rose up, and they all saw the pale and ghastly face. A streak of blood was issuing from the mouth, and the eyes were open.”
Varney the Vampire, Chapter 222

Yet despite the ghastly apparition of the raised Clara, she like Lucy, in death and repose, looks more beautiful than when she was alive. The tales’ similarities might be accidental but it is telling that there are resemblances at all. Further, Rymer occasionally put text of other, invented, Penny Dreadfuls within the text of Varney and at one point we are treated to a vampire one called “The Dead not Dead” – a title reminiscent, as Herr again points out, to Stoker’s The Un-Dead (Dracula’s working title). We should also remember that there is the line in Dracula “and if my death can do her good even now, when she is the dead UnDead, she shall have it freely” (chp 15), and the phrases ‘dead UnDead’ and ‘Dead not Dead’ are similar enough to give pause for thought.

More than that, the nineteenth century literary vampire tended to be rather one-dimensional as a character – a criticism often laid at Stoker. People look to Anne Rice, and her Vampire Chronicles, for the popular inception of a vampire with layers (though perhaps the series Dark Shadows got there first); vampires who felt guilt at their acts and yet were pushed to commit them by their infernal instincts, who were capricious and yet generous and who searched for a meaning to their damned existence. Anne Rice was over 100 years too late, Varney did all that and more; sadist and saint, murderer and saviour, Varney was a complex vampire character unbeknown before and for many years afterwards.

It is pointless, within the confines of this article, to try and relay a plot – though in general it saw Varney involved in many a machination, attempting to acquire either wealth or virgin’s blood – as the saga is so huge. However, what I will do is look to some of the more interesting (if contradictory) lore, genre staples and genre oddities that I noted down as I read through the tome.

The first thing we should ask ourselves is who is Varney? The answer, unfortunately, is that we do not know. Rymer, through the life of the text, changed Varney’s background many times. At one point Varney states that he is 180 years old, at another point he states that he was born, under the name Sleighton, in the reign of Edward the 3rd (1327 – 1377), which would make him more around the 500 mark. This is likely down to faults within the text, rather than any trickery on the part of the character, due to the nature of the Penny Dreadful writing process.

Likewise we do not know how he came to be. We meet a vampire intimated to be his sire and we also hear that vampires come about as a punishment for murder of the innocent. It is suggested that Varney killed his wife or lover, at one point, and his child at another. When we hear that vampirism is a punishment we see a group of vampires (including Varney), summoned, to raise ritually a newly created vampire from the grave. This happens with Clara Crompton, Varney raises her, but she was not guilty of murder – she was merely the victim of a vampire and her birth into the ranks of the undead was part of a sadistic revenge Varney gave out for an act of chivalrous charity (her brothers fished his dead body from the sea). Yet Varney tells Flora Bannerworth, the first vampire casualty detailed in the saga, that a vampire bite will not turn a victim.

It is interesting to note that a red herring is thrown into the early plot that indicates he might have been revived through experimentation with electricity upon his hanged corpse – bringing a modern (post-cinema view of) Frankenstein to mind also. This electrical revival is not the case, and the reviving was coincidental to the experiment (or so I interpreted that section, at least). Later, Rymer likens the effects of the moon (which we shall detail later) to such experimentation when he writes: “Suddenly there was a movement in the form of the dead man −− a spasmodic jerk of the whole muscles of the frame, as if a galvanic battery had been applied to it;”
Varney the Vampire, Chapter 139

The vampire must feed on blood. We hear some folklore that suggests: “those who know about vampires say there are two sorts, one sort always attacks its own relations as were, and nobody else, and the other always selects the most charming young girls.”
Varney the Vampire, Chapter 183
As for Varney, well he is partial to the charming young girls (for that read virginal girls) and has a wont to marry them, often, before feeding. Clara also feeds on young girls and is an early example of female vampire/female victim feeding pattern – predating Carmilla. Whether the vampire can eat and drink normal fare fluctuates; at one point Varney ravenously eats, at another he eats to disguise himself and at yet another he does not partake of mortal food.

The fact that Varney gets these girls to marry him (he has been married several times we hear) is unusual in itself as he is not the dashing hero. He is overly tall, with a ghastly complexion and described often as ugly. Indeed one of the reasons he wants money is as a lure for maidens to marry him as well as to gain a standing in society. The text is a little fluctuating as to whether he has fangs. Sometimes fangs are mentioned, other times teeth. At one point someone mentions a protruding tooth at the front and at another long front teeth are mentioned, both of which brought to mind Nosferatu. At yet another point Varney is described as having tusk like teeth.

Vampires in Varney do not shape change, he is likened occasionally (in his manner of movement) to a wolf – though we should remember that the vampire and the werewolf were interchangeable as concepts at the time – and Annette Lake states that, when attacked by Varney, she dreamt that it was a wolf attacking her before she awoke to see the vampire. Bats are not mentioned – Stoker introduced that bit of lore – and the bat winged demons on the cover of the first issue were artistic and not story integral.

There is a hint of mesmeric eyes but this occurs just once and most of the time Varney’s victims cry out – leading to his detection by others in the household. Like other nineteenth century vampires sunlight is not an issue but, in this, the vampire is not indestructible; he can die by very ordinary means, such as a gunshot or sword strike. More than this, lack of blood (though feeding frequency seems quite moderate) can kill the vampire. However, this is not true death and exposure to moonlight, as with Polidori’s Lord Ruthven, will revive the corpse again:

“No sooner was the whole of the body, the breast, and the face illumined, than there was a particular quiver through that form”
Varney the Vampire, Chapter 104

True vampiric death is difficult to achieve, to say the least. Stopping exposure to moonlight may cause the body to rot after a time and the peasants believe that staking will hold the corpse down and allow it to rot (not necessarily through the heart either, a stake through the stomach is mentioned at one point). Varney, when at his most self-loathing with regards his ‘condition’, attempts suicide. At one point this is attempted by drowning, hoping that the moonbeams will not penetrate the ocean – unfortunately this is when the Cromptons fish his body from the sea. He finally succeeds – at the very end of the saga – by jumping into the fiery mouth of Vesuvius.

I have barely scratched the surface of Varney the Vampire – literally a full book, indeed many volumes, could be written about him, his adventures and his likely impact on the genre. It can be a slog to read but the rewards are there for the genre fan, especially towards the end of the tale. I would recommend Herr’s critical edition as illustrated at the head of this article, which has copious footnotes and critical essays on Varney and the Penny Dreadful form itself.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Vampires - encounters with the Undead - review

Edited by David J. Skal

There are many vampire compilation books on the market, walk into a bargain book store and you are bound to find one. Unfortunately, the bargain book end of the market, more often than not contain much the same material and the dedicated fan finds themselves buying such anthologies to pick through for the one thing contained within the volume that they may not already have..

This book, compiled by David J Skal, however, is something special. A weighty 600 page+ hardback tome, it splits its stories into four categories; these being historical, romantic/Victorian, twentieth century and post-modern.

Many of the classics are present and correct, Polidori’s “The Vampyre”, Tolstoy’s “The Family of the Vourdalak”, Le Fanu’s Carmilla and Stoker’s “Dracula’s Guest” to name but a few. The book also contains excerpts from novels, including Matheson’s I am Legend, Stoker’s “Dracula” and Rymer’s “Varney the Vampyre”.

I am not overly sure about the concept of adding extracts from novels. To be honest I would rather read the whole novel, and avoid excerpts religiously. However, that is just a personal preference and many readers like excerpts in order to ascertain whether they will purchase the whole novel.

The joy of this tome, however, is not so much the rich stories that Skal has chosen to go into the volume, nor is it the fact that the volume is illustrated, which is always a nice touch, rather it is the sidebars that run by every story. Each page has a side-column of text. If we look at “Carmilla”, the sidebars contain:

• a section about “Le Fanu”,
• an extract from “Femme Fatale: Images of Evil and Fascinating Women” by Patrick Bade
• an extract from the 1823 English translation of “Wake not the Dead”
• an article regarding Countess Bathory both historical and regarding film treatments
• a piece about the film “Vampyr” (1931) – the first film which claimed “Carmilla” as an inspiration
• a piece about the film “Blood and Roses” (1961)
• a piece about the film “The Vampire Lovers” (1970)
• a piece about the film “Lust for a Vampire” (1971)
• a piece about the film “Twins of Evil” (1971)
• a piece about the film “The Blood-spattered Bride” (1972)
• a paragraph regarding the TV adaptation “Carmilla” (1989)
• & finally a section about “Carmilla” on stage.
  

When the sidebar looks at a movie, there is, more often than not, a black and white rendering of the movie poster or at least a still.

Of course, the list is just a taste from the sidebar of one story and the wealth of information surrounding and supporting each and every story is simply staggering. It is presented in such a way that the reader can happily choose to pick their way through the bonus material (to use a DVD analogy) or simply concentrate on the actual stories.

In “Vampires – Encounters with the Undead” there are some of the best vampire short stories available, some like the Tolstoy quite difficult to find currently, and a vast wealth of trivia and discourse. Skal himself is a scholar of all things macabre and obviously has a genuine love of the vampire genre.

This anthology could only receive 10 out of 10.