Vampires in Western Europe
Before Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Vampires were Popular in Europe
Sep 6, 2009
Many people know the story of Frankenstein was conceived on a dark and stormy night when Mary Shelley was challenged by Lord Byron to write a gruesome tale of the supernatural. What most people do not know is that the first popular vampire tale written in the English language, called simply The Vampyre, was also created during the haunted summer of 1816.
What is a Vampire?
Vampires as a myth go back far into ancient days, though many of the more modern tales, like the ones Dracula was fashioned after, are in large part Eastern European. According to DK Illustrated Dictionary of Mythology, vampires are “undead corpses who refuse to give up life…they needed to drink human blood in order to stave off death and wandered about the countryside at night looking for sleeping victims.” Depending on the origin of the tale, vampires could also be spirits/ghosts, sorcerers, shape shifters or witches. And they were all taken very seriously by Europeans, who viewed them as dangerous and deadly threats. The Catholic Church even went as far as formally recognizing the existence of vampires in the 1400s.
Dr. John Polidori Writes the First Vampire Story
In the summer of 1816, at a villa on Lake Geneva in Switzerland, Lord Byron, the tempestuous poet, Percy Bysshe Shelly the writer, Mary Shelley, the future author of Frankenstein and Byron’s doctor, John Polidori gathered on holiday. One stormy night, as they sat around in the darkened sitting room, Lord Byron issued a challenge that would forever change the literary world. He challenged the four of them to write a “tale depending on some supernatural agency.”
Byron began a tale about a ghost but never finished it, preferring poetry to fiction. Dr. Polidori took the sketch that Byron had outlined and continued to work on it after he left Byron’s employment later that year. When he was finished, Polidori had reinvented the old myth of vampires into a modern day specter, drawing from experiences in his own life. Polidori’s main character, an aristocrat named Lord Ruthven, is assumed to be based in large part on Lord Byron, whom Polidori did not get along with. Lord Ruthven was a dashing, handsome womanizer. Unlike previous vampire stories, Polidori’s vampire was not a spirit possessing a peasant or social outcast, but a vampire disguised as a gentlemen with a plot that featured romantic overtones. It was these characteristics that would greatly influence the most famous vampire of all, Count Dracula.
The Vampyre, the title of Polidori’s story, was first published in April1819 in New Monthly Magazine. The story was a smashing success in both Great Britain and France. Polidori claimed the story had been published without his permission and since he never copywrited the story, he lost all rights to international best seller. He was paid a 30 pounds for the story, far less than it made the publishers.
Following the publication of The Vampyre, a vampire craze ensued, with operettas and stage plays focusing on the haunting figure of a vampire. German composer Heinrich Marschner even wrote an opera called Der Vampyr, which is said to have influenced Richard Wagner.
Bram Stoker and Dracula
In the 1840s vampire serial novels were all the rage. A popular tale was Varney the Vampire (The Feast of the Blood) by Thomas Peckett Priest, which was published in 1847. In 1871 Irish writer Joseph Sheridan Lefanu published his vampire tale, Carmilla, which is believed to have strongly influenced Bram Stoker. Published in 1897, Dracula was based in part on the Slavic myth of Vlad the Impaler (officially known as Vlad V of Wallachia).
Sources:
Evans, Ivor H. Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable. New York: Harper & Row
Publishers, 1981.
Hoobler, Dorothy & Thomas. The Monsters: Mary Shelley and The Curse of
Frankenstein. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2006.
Wilkinson, Philip. DK Illustrated Dictionary of Mythology. Buckinghamshire: DK
Publishing Book,1998.
 |
 |
 |
