The Bloody Countess: The Atrocities of Erzsebet Bathory [Paperback]

Valentine Penrose (Author)

Book Description

Series: Blood History | Publication Date: September 2000

The true story of a 17th century Hungarian Countess who bathed in the blood of girls... Descended from one of the most ancient aristocratic families of Europe, Erzsébet Báthory bore the psychotic aberrations of centuries of intermarriage. From adolescence she indulged in sadistic lesbian fantasies, where only the spilling of a woman's blood could satisfy her urges. By middle age, she had regressed to a mirror-fixated state of pathalogical necro-sadism involving witchcraft, torture, blood-drinking, cannibalism and, inevitably wholescale slaughter. These years witnessed a reign of cruelty, unsurpassed in the annals of mass' murder, with the Countess' depredations on the virgin girls of the Carpathians leading to some 650 deaths. Her many castles were equipped with chambers where she would hideously torture and mutilate her victims, becoming a murder factory where hundreds of girls were killed and processed for the ultimate, youth-giving ritual: the bath of blood. The Bloody Countess is Valentine Penrose's disturbing case history of a female psychopath, a chillingly lyrical account beautifully translated by Alexander Trocchi, which has an unequalled power to evoke the decadent melancholy of doomed, delinquent aristocracy in a dark age of superstition.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 102 pages
• Publisher: The Tears Corporation/Creation (September 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1840680563
• ISBN-13: 978-1840680560
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,613,408 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Writing Style Indicative of Author's Heritage, May 11, 2004

By 

Sara G. (Mamou, LA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Bloody Countess: The Atrocities of Erzsebet Bathory (Paperback)

To understand the book and many of the reviews here, one has to consider the author. Valentine Penrose was active in the Surrealist art movement and published many surrealist poems. Radcliffe and the Marquis de Sade were great influences on her writing. This book is more than a historical tale; her love of gothic prose and words is as much a character in the book as the countess. Penrose's telling of the Bloody Countess's story stands out from those of other historians because Penrose is one of the only writers to tell the story without either an overt or covert Christian interpretation of the events. So, if you want just facts without wading through lots of writing, chose another text. If you are interested in surrealist writing or want a more avant-garde look at the Countess, read Penrose's.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The content is good, if not the way it is presented, June 7, 2001

By 

Mary Schmidt (Reichelsheim Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Bloody Countess: The Atrocities of Erzsebet Bathory (Paperback)

There's alot of fuss being made about this book. I don't particularly see anything wrong with the prose style, except that it becomes a little heavy handed in some places. The fact of the matter is that this is the only freely available work on Erzebet Bathory, and as such it is superb. I thought it highly interesting, although it could have been structured better.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Utter Nonsense, July 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Bloody Countess (Paperback)

What would happen if Danielle Steel tried to be Oswald Spengler? The result would be something very similar to "The Bloody Countess" - an often incomprehensible account of historical events related in prose so flowery it stands to cause migraines. Penrose's work is a garbled mess of self-consciously mysterious language; hopelessly bogged down with high-flown speech, the story of Countess Bathory becomes lost in all the Kafkaesque prattle. She moves randomly from one topic to the next, following no logical thought patterns, often obscuring her points in meaningless, poetic drivel. I read this book seeking factual information on the history of Elizabeth Bathory and came out sorely disappointed; to call it unreadable would be a kindness.