Customer Reviews

Before the Count: British Vampire Tales, 1732-1897

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It's a very curious collection: containing articles published in British magazines, I think it was two short stories, a few plays and two poems. More diverse in material type than I had expected. Typical was the inclusion of Polidori's "The Vampyre," noticiably absent was Cooleridge's poem "Christabel." With the book's wonderful diversity in material type, I was disappointed that "Christabel" wasn't included. However, the plays are very melodramatic and a pleasure to read, and I'm glad it didn't just reprint everything that was already present in other collections.

A warning to fans of gothic-era vampire literature. This is a very small, thin book. A major portion of the book is consumed, first, by a long introduction, and second, by a historical catalog of the short lived vampire panic in England. While historically interesting, I do not feel that articles on the vampire panic qualify as "tales". The rest of the book is dedicated to fragments of plays and poems which feature vampires in them. So, if you are looking for a compilation of vampire short stories or novellas from 1700's to 1800's, you should keep looking. However, if you have scraped the bottom of the barrel of all existing vampire fiction from that era or if you have an academic interest you may find a few things of interest here.