“THE FIRST VAMPIRE STORY IN ENGLISH LITERATURE”: POLIDORI’S VAMPYRE, 1819

POLIDORI, John William. The Vampyre; A Tale. London: Sherwood, Neely and Jones, 1819. Octavo, later drab boards, paper spine label. Housed in custom cloth chemise and half morocco slipcase.

First edition of “the first vampire story in English literature”—first issue to remove Lord Byron’s name from the title page, practically the earliest obtainable issue and the first issue widely available to the public (all earlier issues having been successfully suppressed to remove the fraudulent attribution of authorship to Byron).

Dr. Polidori, Lord Byron’s physician, conceived this important gothic tale at Lake Geneva when he accompanied Byron on a visit with Percy and Mary Shelley in 1816. In the course of a long, late-night conversation, the group’s imaginations turned to the monstrous, the supernatural, and the undead. “We shall each write a ghost story,” Byron proclaimed. His injunction prompted Mary’s Frankenstein; Polidori wrote The Vampyre, which reached print in the April 1, 1819 issue of the New Monthly Magazine as “The Vampyre: A Tale by Lord Byron.” This conscious fraud was perpetuated in the first book edition, published by Colburn. Byron wrote to John Murray, his publisher, “I have got your extract, and The Vampire. I need not say it is not mine… what is not published by you is not written by me” (Quennell, 449). “Generally recognized as the first vampire story in English literature, Polidori’s novella is the forerunner of the sophisticated vampirism of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and, in the 20th century, Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire” (Tymn, I:304).

This issue, the second Sherwood, Neely & Jones issue (with 1818 watermarks) was the first to drop Byron’s name from the title page and is the issue that was widely released for purchase and review, all previous issues having been successfully suppressed and corrected. While the offending half title and title pages were reset to remove the false attribution to Byron, the rest of the book continued to consist of sheets from the first Colburn issue (Viets, 101-02). The first two issues published by Colburn are virtually impossible to obtain; the first, directly naming Byron as the author, is presumed to have existed but no copy is known, and the second, “related by Lord Byron to Dr. Polidori,” is known in only a handful of copies. (The first Sherwood, Neely & Jones issue also named Byron as the author, and was also quickly suppressed.) The introductory “Extract of a Letter from Geneva” was also reset at some point in the process to remove (1) the mention on page xiv of “two sisters as partakers of his revels” (referring to Mary Godwin Shelley and “Clair” Clairmont), and (2) the footnote on page xvi, concerning the publication of Godwin’s Frankenstein. This copy contains both mentions, indicating early issue. This copy also retains the earlier misprint of “lmost” on the last line of page 36, found corrected in some copies. Bound with half title, often not present. Pencil owner signature.

Polidori’s name inked faintly on title page. Text quite clean; marginal closed tear to E7 (in the “Account of Lord Byron’s Residence,” not the text of The Vampyre). A near-fine copy of the earliest obtainable issue, desirable with the half title and the preface in its uncorrected state.