The Vampyre, John William Polidori
The Vampyre, John William Polidori
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The Vampyre
A Tale

Author: John William Polidori

Narrator: Fred Wolinsky

Unabridged: 1 hr 26 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Surreal

Published: 10/07/2020

Categories: Fiction, Horror


Synopsis

The superstition upon which this tale is founded is very general in the East. Among the Arabians, it appears to be common: it did not, however, extend itself to the Greeks until after the establishment of Christianity; and it has only assumed its present form since the division of the Latin and Greek churches. At which time, the idea becoming prevalent that a Latin body could not corrupt if buried in their territory, it gradually increased, and formed the subject of many wonderful stories, still extant, of the dead rising from their graves and feeding upon the blood of the young and beautiful. In the West it spread, with some slight variation, all over Hungary, Poland, Austria, and Lorraine, where the belief existed that vampyres nightly imbibed a certain portion of the blood of their victims, who became emaciated, lost their strength, and speedily died of consumption. Whilst these human blood-suckers fattened, and their veins became distended to such a state of repletion as to cause the blood to flow from all the passages of their bodies, and even from the very pores of their skins.In the London Journal of March 1732 is a curious, and, of course, credible account of a particular case of vampyrism, which is stated to have occurred at Madreyga, in Hungary. It appears that, upon an examination of the commander-in-chief and magistrates of the place, they positively and unanimously affirmed that, about five years before, a certain Heyduke, named Arnold Paul, had been heard to say, that, at Cassovia, on the frontiers of the Turkish Servia, he had been tormented by a vampyre, but had found a way to rid himself of the evil by eating some of the earth out of the vampyre's grave and rubbing himself with his blood. This precaution, however, did not prevent him from becoming a vampyre himself. For about 20 or 30 days after his death and burial, many persons complained of having been tormented by him.

About John William Polidori

John William Polidori was an English author and physician who is best known as the creator of the vampire genre.


Reviews

Goodreads review by s.penkevich on October 07, 2024

I’ve always been amused that Lord Byron was such an epic icon of debauchery and being a total shit that the modern interpretation of vampires was more or less created in his image. Legends of vampires have been around for centuries, going back even to cultures of Mesopotamians and the Romans where t......more

Goodreads review by Anne on October 24, 2024

The Vampyre! Whilst Dracula drones on and on and on and on like a paranormal travelogue, this one just gets right to the point. That makes it vastly easier for a peasant like myself to get through. Also, published in 1819 this version of the modern vampire is considered one of the first in English li......more

Goodreads review by Sean Barrs on October 31, 2017

This is one of those weird bits of fiction where the story behind its creation is actually more interesting than the work itself: it was the result of a writing challenge between Mary Shelley, Byron and Polidori, the very same challenge that resulted in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The tale begins wi......more