Customer Reviews

The Bloody Countess: Atrocities of Erzsebet Bathory

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Penrose did a great deal of research--unfortunately the research involved the geography and history of the region, and not so much on Bathory. The interesting details of Bathory are buried at the end of each long winded section that is more concerned with her family geneology or relatives misbehavior than Bathory's.

The sources for the book are excellent, but I hate to read an entire chapter to have one paragraph dedicated to Bathory's atrocities (which were scant in the text...at the end of each chapter we are tittilated with a small detail then pounded again with astological non-sense or geographical trivia).

The section on her trial was relatively short...even with letters writen by those that discovered her henious acts. But its all so short---Penrose spends more time and details discussing another mass murderer of the same time who favored young boys (who killed roughly 60 like Bathory herself claims to have done) to show the depths of depravity--and you are left to wonder why the book wasn't on this killer that is spoken of in each chapter instead of Bathory who has very few details included on her crimes.

Select a different title if you are interested in Bathory.

I read this book years ago when it had a different cover. The cover featured what looked like a string of pearls covered in blood. After I read the book I was struck at how appropriate the cover was for the story within. Penrose's focus is not solely Bathory herself. Rather, she is fascinated with the Hungarian society of the time and how that society was in many clear ways complicit in Bathory's crimes. It is easy to accuse the nobility of exploiting the peasants. One is inclined to advocate for the "little guy" in such a story. However, it was these very peasants who would drop off unwanted daughters at Erszebet Bathory's castles, knowing full well what would happen to them there because the countess's crimes were an open secret (servants talk). However, in a country that was constantly at war with the Turks and other enemies, there were many more women than men alive at the time and so there were many unmarried girls who were not likely to ever marry. I suppose the countess believed herself to be providing a sort of civic service by ridding Hungary of its surplus of spinsters. For this reason, I think that Penrose does a great job of presenting us Erszebet Bathory within the context of her society and times because her crimes by themselves are not the whole story. The society that allowed her to kill unfettered for 35 years is itself a truly important part of the story, adding a layer of meaning to Bathory's insane and meaningless crimes.

The way in which she was finally stopped is very telling. Bathory noticed that in spite of years of blood baths, she was still aging. Her resident witch, Jo Ilona, advised her to change the color of the blood from red to blue. Bathory then began to kill the daughters of the local nobility--and that was her mistake. So long as she was killing peasant girls no one cared, not even the "poor" peasants. As soon as she began killing aristocratic girls, she had to be stopped, and she was.

The examination of Bathory in her context allows us to draw parallels with our own times. Don't we have Kennedys who get away with rape nowadays? Don't we have football celebrities who get away with murdering their wives? People with status and prestige still get away with a lot--even in America, don't they? The only reason why Bathory was able to get away with her crimes for so long is her social status. She was a member of one of Hungary's founding families. It also helped that her first cousin was the King of Hungary, her uncle was the king of Russia, and her brother was the king of Poland. With such relatives she was herself untouchable. Reading this book you begin to see that although Bathory is dead and her crimes happened long ago, the circumstances that allowed her to commit her transgressions are still with us. For me, that was the scary part.

Currently there has been renewed interest and fascination with the character of the countess, impeled, I believe, by ignorance. "Feminist" writers have created sympathetic accounts in which the countess is cast in the role of the "wronged woman," betrayed by a society that prefers to have men in power rather than women. True: the king of Hungary wanted to seize the extensive lands and fortunes of the countess. Also true: the countess's crimes were real. She was indeed murdering young girls and bathing in their blood in order to "preserve the sweet bird of my youth," in her words. Her crimes were the achilles' heel the king had been waiting for, and he used the opportunity to both stop her and enrich himself. One monster gobbles up another, you might say. Am I supposed to feel sorry for the monster that became prey because that monster was a woman? Oh! How my heart bleeds for a woman who murdered hundreds of girls in order to bathe in their blood! I am absolutely heartbroken for a woman who would take a young girl and freeze her alive by pouring buckets of water on her outside in the cold night by the side of a stream. NOT! I hope my point is clear. You have to be pretty darn ignorant to feel sorry for the countess.

Modern goths and certain occultists find the countess to be mystically significant because of her blood practices. But to believe that the countess's practices actually work is something that in itself reveals an interesting truth. Ignorance and enlightenment are attitudes, and have nothing to do with the books you read or the academic degrees you've earned. In the end, belief depends on desire, not reason, and we believe in what we want to believe in. Could it be that some people find her so scary that, rather than defy her and what she stands for, they'd rather defend her? One sees situations like that in life, in which people choose to side with the bully rather than the victim--out of mere cowardice or fear. In an age of fear like the current one, the bullies and abusers are turned into heroes. The more fear you inspire the more fans you have. Joran Van der Sloot is a good modern example of this. How would you explain all the fan mail and wedding proposals he receives in jail from all over the world? It is the worship and admiration of power. And thus, the countess finds a place in some hearts.

Not any eventual mystical or astrological power (that the author seems to believe in sometimes) but of the family a person is born into; other factors like the education and rolemodels are also extremely important in the personality of the person one becomes. Unfortunately all the elements joined in 1560, creating a monster of impressive proportions and unbelievable terror. Born in the Hungarian Highest class, powerfull, intelligent,mentally unstable and frustated because of a repressed education, when she found the freedom to do wathever she wanted, suffering came.

The author is no historian - point taken - she is a poetess of the surrealist movement, and that brings several advantages and disadvantages in this biography. The power and the emotions brought to life reading this book are quite strong, and she can sucessfully empathise with the monster (wich is an impressive feat that only a poet could do) being very impartial in her analyses. The downside is that she had a clear lack of material about the events related directly to Erzsébet Bathory. The book is also weakly structured , with too many chronological jumps, the repetition of concepts, almost with as many information about French Marechal Gilles de Rais then about Countess Bathory. But it is worthy comparing both characters, the analysis and dissecation makes sense and becomes the major conclusion of the author explaining the differences between these monsters that appear similar, but in essence are very different. The countess believed she had the right to kill hundreds of her peasant girls! Gilles de Rais lived a tormented life trying to please God and the Devil at the same time.

Hungary was a brutally savage land in ancient and medieval times. There remained old beliefs and superstitions, their nobility was known for bravery and savagery, and Christianity was only skin deep. The author explores (maybe exagerating a bit), the history, myths, superstitions and geography of the land; too many times forgetting completely the "storyline"!

The horrible tortures, and the sadism are described in detail; and the author proves that the tendency for torture started clearly before the worries about her vanishing beauty. Obviously with age she became the feared "vampire", that tried to steal youth and beauty...to no avail.

The author also focused on the political and religious situation created by this protestant countess in a period of severe religious tensions. The grand Paladin of Hungary, also a protestant had to arrest her and quietly try to stifle the entire affair...but the legend of the Bloody countess was too strong.

The lack of footnotes and bibliography impairs further investigation, and it becomes very difficult to separate events from the suppositions of the author. But the text is beautifully written and the reader is transported to a time and place where everybody feared the witch, the vampire and the wolf. For the artistic value of this book I would give four stars.

This book is very well researched and written. Keep in mind though that it's not for the faint hearted. It goes into a lot of detail on the history of Hungary and the Bathory family that some may find tedious. I loved the book and would reccomend it to anyone with a desire to take a peek into the darker side of human nature.

I found this to be a very interesting read.
looking for books on Bathory, i found this one and a different one, but it wasn't a fact based book i saw, it was like a fictional story i think someone said in a review. This book as far as I've read tells details of her life. There's an appendix showing portions of the trials Elizabeth was put through and how they got the information about her.
unfortunately, this is the only book on her that i have found, and the size of it is a little disappointing. this is a must buy if one is to learn more about this 16th century Hungarian Blood Countess.
"The blood is the life"

Valentine Penrose was a surrealist, and her quasi-biography reads like a fever dream, which is not all bad. Translated by Alexander Trocchi from French into English, Penrose chronicles the life and death of Erzsebet Bathory. While Penrose at times writes herself into a frenzy detailing the alleged torture and murders the countess was arrested and incarcerated for, the central character of Bathory remains frustratingly obtuse. Penrose believed her to be a bad seed from birth, a psychopath influenced more by her horoscope (which supposedly led her to Sapphic indulgences almost against her will: "...the influx of the masculine and warlike Mars is at the bottom of this, and a woman born under this sign, influenced by the cruel spears of Mars, does not shrink from wounding, particularly in love, whatever is young, loving, and feminine.") than the barbarism of that period.

Erzsebet is protrayed as a narcissist so bizarre that she neglected her children and household obligations so that she might sponge herself first in rotted herbs, later in clotted gore, so that her skin would glow unnaturally white so that she could, well sit in front of a mirror for hours at a time admiring her pale complexion. Likewise, her co-conspirators are ciphers, hag-like witches and an obscene dwarf straight out of gothic fantasy.

The saddest aspect of the book, and I believe Penrose did feel empathy for the victims, is the fact that not a single male contemporary of the girls who were tortured and mutilated, not a Knight or a page or a serf, ever felt compelled to try and save the maids from their fate. Likewise, peasant women, some of them mothers of the would-be victims, took an active role in procuring "nubile" victims with full knowledge of the atrocities that awaited the girls. There is nothing in Penrose's tale that accounts for this wide-spread apathy. It's as chilling as the Countess herself.

There is not that much information about the countess, so, although what there is I found informative and interesting, the author tended to repeat himself to fill out his pages. The repetition was annoying, but overall the reading was easy and, at least for me, worth the time.

It has great history but hard to find it all through the poetry style in it.

I find this book one of the most impressive case studies about serial killers. Although women comprise only 3% of serial killers ever identified (and they usually opt for less violent methods of killing such as poisoning),it is the sadist and nihilistic behavior of this female "Beast" that really surpassess all her male colleagues, even those of our modern times. This is a tragic example of social and political power unchecked by the restraints of the law and moral conciousness, combined to whatever pathological trait can be indetified in her flawed character. She rightly deserves her place along the famous genocides of all times such as Hitler, Stalin and Milosevic. It is a pity that more psychological analysis is missing. Otherwise, it is a great maiden study that can stimulate further research on the dark side of the murderer's mind.

When you read about serial killers, child killers, and the like you just think that "These are the end times". But upon reading this book to think that such things have been happening since those times tend to chill you. It makes you feel a little better about having police and the like. Once again, great book!!