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Chapters: Edwin Beard Budding, James K. Polk, John Keats, John William Polidori, Anselme Payen, Saverio Mercadante, Constantine Kanaris, Thomas Carlyle, Frances Wright, Gabriel Lamé, Charles Barry, James Braid, Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg, Friedrich August Von Alberti, William Lyon Mackenzie, Yagan, Benjamin Morrell, José María Obando, Johns Hopkins, Nicolo Giraud, Kondraty Ryleyev, Emily Austin Perry, Leopold Von Ranke, Rowland Hill, Pavel Jozef Šafárik, James Oliver Van de Velde, James Whitcomb, Mark John Currie, Charles Shaw, Robert Moresby, Thomas Wakley, Lorrin Andrews, Henry Havelock, Abraham Malpan, Charles Sturt, Sir Thomas Metcalfe, 4th Baronet, Charles Muir Campbell, Richard Lane, David Thomas, Thomas Peers Williams, Bernt Michael Holmboe, Henry Parkyns Hoppner, Antonio Bagioli, Frederick William Iv of Prussia, John J. Milligan, Thomas Leavitt, Anthony Norris Groves, Karl Ludwig Sand, Anna Pavlovna of Russia, Antonio José de Sucre, Robert F. Stockton, John Lhotsky, John Jeremie, John P. Kennedy, Joseph Wolff, Aleksandr Griboyedov, Joshua Reed Giddings, George Peabody, Charles Von Hügel, Sara Torsslow, Andre B. Roman, Thomas Arnold, John P. Gaines, Deborah Fisher Wharton, Alexander Twilight, James Harper, Harvey Brown, Thomas Noon Talfourd, Tom Spring, August Von Bethmann-Hollweg, Gamaliel King, John B. Jervis, Thomas Anson, 1st Earl of Lichfield, Jem Broadbridge, Anton Von Prokesch-Osten, Sir Henry Barron, 1st Baronet, Peter Jan Beckx, Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, Aubrey George Spencer, Patty Bartlett Sessions, Peter Andreas Hansen, Zephaniah Williams, John K. Kane, Origen D. Richardson, Heinrich Marschner, Jacques Nicolas Augustin Thierry, Maria Schicklgruber, Gilbert Heathcote, 1st Baron Aveland, Ludwig Bledow, Brownlow Cecil, 2nd Marquess of Exeter, Richard Borden, Joshua R. Sands, Baroness Micaela Almonester de Pontalba, Robert Lucas de Pearsall, Matthias W. Baldwin, Rudolf Von Auerswald, Vincent Pallotti, Sarah Ann ...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=15980 ... Read more

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Chapters: John William Polidori, David Stirling, Paul Morrissey, Lawrence Dallaglio, Ampleforth College, Robert Nairac, William Dalrymple, Rupert Everett, Michael Ancram, Basil Hume, Jean, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, Simon Fraser, 15th Lord Lovat, Antony Gormley, Bill Inman, Hugh Millais, Andrew Knight, Edward Fitzalan-Howard, 18th Duke of Norfolk, Lord Michael Fitzalan-Howard, John Crichton-Stuart, 7th Marquess of Bute, Leo Chamberlain, Edward Stourton, Reginald C. Fuller, Piers Paul Read, Alexander Fermor-Hesketh, 3rd Baron Hesketh, Miles Fitzalan-Howard, 17th Duke of Norfolk, Andrew Bertie, John Home Robertson, Murder of Philip Lawrence, Michael Allmand, Julian Fellowes, Charles Stourton, 26th Baron Mowbray, Agustín Jerónimo de Iturbide Y Huarte, Michael Nolan, Baron Nolan, Freddie de Guingand, Michael Abney-Hastings, 14th Earl of Loudoun, Thomas Cecil Gray, Andrew Parker Bowles, Julian Asquith, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Asquith, Edward Tomkins, John Ryan, Columba Cary-Elwes, John Johnston, Vincent Cronin, Simon Easterby, Hugh Fraser, Matthew Festing, William Peel, 3rd Earl Peel, Simon James, Neil Balfour, Peter Kerr, 12th Marquess of Lothian, Oliver Miles, Moshoeshoe Ii of Lesotho, George André Robertson, Peter Grant Peterkin, Ambrose Griffiths, Hugo Young, Robert Maximilian de Gaynesford, John Keay, Augustine Kelly, James O'brien, Gabriel Turville-Petre, Letsie Iii of Lesotho, David Poole, Nicholas Rodger, Simon Marsden, Dominic Asquith, George Shea, Raymond Asquith, Viscount Asquith, John Micklethwait, Aubrey Buxton, Baron Buxton of Alsa, Auberon Herbert, David Hennessy, 3rd Baron Windlesham, Benet Perceval, Guy Easterby, Saul David, Angus Loughran, Nicholas Peter Wright, Julian Wadham, Hugh James Arbuthnott, Richard Norton, 8th Baron Grantley, Robert Noel, John Crichton-Stuart, 6th Marquess of Bute, Lord Rhidian Crichton-Stuart, Felix Stephens, Tom Waller, John de Trafford, Red Morris, 4th Baron Killanin, Sebastian Roberts...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=640800 ... Read more

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Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Alan Turing, Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Göring, Erwin Rommel, John William Polidori, Demosthenes, Fumimaro Konoe, Karl Haushofer, Vachel Lindsay, Charlotte Mew, Adolf Hitler, Florence Lawrence, Horacio Quiroga, Eva Braun, Wallace Carothers, Thomas Chatterton, Robert Ritter Von Greim, Isabella Blow, Patty Cannon, Odilo Globocnik, Paul Lafargue, Günther Von Kluge, Maria Czaplicka, Eleanor Marx, Margaret Laurence, Viktor Meyer, Charles de Choiseul-Praslin, Art Acord, George Sterling, John Suckling, George Periolat, Marshall Applewhite, Calel Perechodnik, Saeed Emami, Leonard Lake, Francis Ellingwood Abbot, Rikichi Andō, Hursid Pasha, Alexandru Papană, James Price, Masahiko Amakasu, Noel Mewton-Wood, George Black, Veronica Micle, Rudolph Schoenheimer, Marvel Rea, Miles Sindercombe, Dave Clement, Chick Stahl, Tezozomoctli, Leopoldo Lugones, Nadezhda Sigida, Hazel Farris, Louis Fles, Richard Realf, Adam Czerniaków, Jean Joseph Rabearivelo, Hans Von Pechmann, James Smith, Ramón Sampedro, Jason Altom, Edward Fitzgerald, 7th Duke of Leinster, Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Bernhard Förster, Tiffany Simelane, Chizuko Mifune, Bernhard Hirzel, Kim Won-Bong, Terry Long, Arno Assmann, Peter Vogel, George Westmore, Kunihiko Hashida, Arthur Woodcock, Delphine Delamare. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: Pogroms: Kristallnacht Bucharest Dorohoi Iai Kaunas Jedwabne Lviv (Lvov) Adolf Hitler (German pronunciation: ; 20 April 1889 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (German: , abbreviated NSDAP), commonly known as the Nazi Party. He was the absolute dictator of Germany from 1934 to 1945, with the title of chancellor from 1933 to 1945 and with the title head of state (Führer und Reichskanzler) from 1...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=2731583 ... Read more

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Quattro classici racconti sui vampiri. Il Vampiro, di John William Polidori, forse il primo racconto del genere: Lord Ruthven, un vampiro nobile e affascinante che tormenta un giovane di belle speranze. Carmilla, di Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: una vampira bella e sensuale seduce e affascina giovani vittime. Il soldato e il vampiro, di W. R. S. Rolesten, una fiaba classica russa su un mago-vampiro. Perché il sangue è vita, di Francis Marion Crawford: una giovane e selvaggia vampira seduce il giovane amato sullo sfondo di una calda estate calabrese. ... Read more

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Quattro storie sui vampiri
Quattro storie, quattro piccoli classici della letteratura sui vampiri.
1) Il Vampiro, di John William Polidori. La prima opera di fiction a rappresentare il vampiro come personaggio carismatico, dotato di un fascino irresistibile. Non per niente la figura del vampiro protagonista è stata modellata su quella di Lord Byron, personaggio indubbiamente affascinante. Aubrey, giovane di belle speranze, ricco e nobile ma anche ingenuo e idealista, subisce il fascino di Lord Ruthven, aristocratico annoiato e affascinante, col quale intraprende un lungo viaggio in Europa. Ma in questa esperienza avrà modo di rendersi conto che il suo amico non è il nobile eroe che credeva, bensì qualcosa di molto più ambiguo e pericoloso. Il racconto venne ideato in una memorabile occasione, nella villa di Lord Byron sul lago di Ginevra. Era il 1816, quello che venne definito "l'anno senza estate" a causa delle condizioni climatiche in Europa e in Nord America. Oltre a Polidori, scrittore e medico anglo-italiano nonché amico di Byron, il poeta ospitava anche Percy Bysshe Shelley, la sua compagna diciannovenne Mary Godwin (o Wollestonecraft Shelley, com'è più nota) e Claire Clairmont, sorellastra di quest'ultima. Era giugno, ma una pioggia incessante costrinse in casa per tre giorni questo singolare gruppo, che pensò bene di ingannare il tempo leggendo storie gotiche e bevendo laudano. Dalla lettura si passò alla scrittura, Byron ideò le linee principali di quello che divenne poi il racconto di Polidori, mentre Mary Godwin stese le basi di uno dei romanzi gotici più famosi, che sarebbe stato pubblicato due anni dopo: Frankenstein.
2) Carmilla, di Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Laura è una ragazza di origine inglese che vive col padre e la governante in un castello isolato in Austria. La sua esistenza solitaria è scossa dall'arrivo improvviso di Carmilla, una sua coetanea bellissima, affascinante e molto misteriosa che, in seguito a un incidente, dovrà essere ospitata al castello per alcuni mesi. Carmilla è irresistibile e seducente, e Laura non riesce a sottrarsi alle sue effusioni se non con difficoltà. Ma chi è davvero quella strana ragazza che la attrae e allo stesso tempo la spaventa? E chi è il misterioso spettro che si aggira nei dintorni del castello seminando la morte tra le giovani contadine? Anche se in questo classico, che precede di venticinque anni il celebre Dracula, Le Fanu non si pronuncia sulla sessualità di Carmilla, lasciandola avvolta in un velo di mistero, indubbiamente la sua figura ambigua, con la sua preferenza per giovani e avvenenti fanciulle da predare, deve aver turbato parecchi dei suoi contemporanei.
3) Il Vampiro e il Soldato, fiaba popolare russa, raccolta da W. R. S. Ralston.Un mago malvagio divenuto vampiro e un soldato spavaldo e intrepido che riuscirà a carpirne gli oscuri segreti, in un racconto popolare, poco noto ma decisamente tradizionale.
4) Perché il sangue è vita, di Francis Marion Crawford. Siamo in Calabria, tra Scalea e Maratea. Cristina, fanciulla bellissima e selvaggia, ama Angelo, il ragazzo più amato e ammirato del paese. Ma lei non è una ragazza come le altre, le sue labbra rosse come il sangue nascondono un segreto mortale e la sua passione divorante affascina e avvince Angelo che non sa, e non vuole, trovare la forza per resisterle.
Così come noi quando leggiamo queste storie. ... Read more

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The Vampyre; A Tale, by John William Polidori 1819
The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde
by Robert Louis Stevenson 1886
The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James 1898
... Read more

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Three Gothic Novels
The stories themselves, are great.However, when I received the book, it fell apart the first time I opened it!It wasn't in good condition as promised.:(

GREAT!
Simply amazing and the service was wonderful.
I will be purchasing other books and things from here.
The service is great!
Sophia E. DiGonis

Early Gothic Novels by Walpole, Beckford, and Polidori
I was new to the Gothic genre when I first encountered this Dover publication some years ago. At that time I considered the plot for The Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole to be farfetched, almost ludicrous. The mystical Oriental tale, Vathek (1782), by William Beckford seemed endless. Only the short story titled The Vampyre (1819, by John Polidori) met my expectations.

My opinion today is quite different. I have gradually become familiar with Gothic literature, and I now appreciate just how innovative these three stories were, and to how great an extent these tales influenced later writers. I give four stars to this collection.

The eighteenth century was clearly a period of philosophical and scientific progress.And yet, many readers were immediately intrigued and entertained by the supernatural, bizarre elements in The Castle of Otranto. Hundreds of authors subsequently imitated Walpole's Gothic style. Although many of these later stories had little literary merit, the Gothic novel remained immensely popular for the following century.

Today, it is true that the supernatural aspects in The Castle of Otranto may be overworked, the dialogue is often stilted, and the plot relies too much on coincidences. Nonetheless, The Castle of Otranto remains quite entertaining and suspenseful. The lengthy introduction by Sir Walter Scott (included in the 1811 edition) illustrates the remarkable impact of "this new species of literary composition".

William Beckford's Vathek is so original that it hardly fits even the Gothic genre. Beckford, a noted scholar of early Arabian literature, provided more than fifty pages of explanatory end notes. For some reason he first published Vathek in French. Later it was translated and published in English without his approval. I still find Vathek to be overly long, but this time I was intrigued with its mystical Arabian Nights motif, its chilling characters, and its vivid portrayal of evil.

In an introduction to The Vampyre the author John Polidori claimed (possibly to increase sales) that Lord Byron had created the plot at the same literary soiree in Geneva in which Mary Shelley produced Frankenstein. Lord Byron disputed Polidori's claim and produced his own notes from that famous gathering. Regardless, The Vampyre is fascinating short story.

E. F. Bleiler edited this collection and provided a lengthy, interesting introduction to three authors that were instrumental in developing the Gothic novel.

Gothick Terror, Oriental Decadence, Romantic Vampyres...
This volume is an excellent introduction to four
works of the Gothic mindset, which hit England at
the end of the 1700s and lasted on into the early
Romantic period, all the way up to the late decadence
of the 1890s, winding up in Robert Louis Stevenson's
THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1886),
Oscar Wilde's THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY (1891), and
Bram Stoker's DRACULA (1897).
These are four of the earliest of this Gothic genre.
The volume includes Horace Walpole's THE CASTLE OF
OTRANTO (Christmas Eve, 1764); William Beckford's
VATHEK (1786); John Polidori's VAMPYRE (1819); and
a Vampire Fragment by Lord Byron (1819), "which was
published at the end of MAZEPPA in 1819."
The list of Gothic NOVELS (rather than stories)
in chronological order which make the grade are:
Horace Walpole's CASTLE OF OTRANTO (1764), Clara
Reeve's THE CHAMPION OF VIRTUE (1777), William
Beckford's VATHEK (1786), Ann Radcliffe's THE
MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO (1794), Matthew Gregory Lewis's
THE MONK (1795), Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN (1818),
John Polidori's VAMPYRE (1819), Charles R. Maturin's
MELMOTH THE WANDERER (1820).
There are excellent introductions to each of the
writers and their works at the beginning of the book.
In speaking of THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO, Bleiler says:
"This novel has been called one of the half-dozen
historically most important novels in English. The
founder of a school of fiction, the so-called Gothic
novel, it served as the direct model for an enormous
quantity of novels written up through the first
quarter of the 19th century....It was probably
the most important source for enthusiasm for the
Middle Ages that suddenly swept Europe in the later
18th century, and many of the trappings of the early
19th century Romantic movement have been traced to
it. It embodied the spirit of an age."
There is included a series of impressive "Notes"
to the novel VATHEK: An Arabian Tale.The novel
begins in an interesting fashion: "Vathek, ninth
caliph of the race of the Abassides, was the son
of Motassem, and the grandson of Haroun al Raschid.
From an early accession to the throne, and the talents
he possessed to adorn it, his subjects were induced to
expect that his reign would be long and happy.His
figure was pleasing and majestic: but when he was
angry, one of his eyes became so terrible, that no
person could bear to behold it; and the wretch upon
whom it was fixed instantly fell backward, and
sometimes expired.For fear, however, of depopulating
his dominions and making his palace desolate, he but
rarely gave way to his anger."
And here is a sample bite from John Polidori's
VAMPYRE: "There was no colour upon her cheek, not
even upon her lip; yet there was a stillness about
her face that seemed almost as attaching as the life
that once dwelt there: --upon her neck and breast
was blood, and upon her throat were the marks of teeth
having opened the vein: -- to this the men pointed,
crying, simultaneously struck with horror, "A
Vampyre! a Vampyre!"

A great primer for those interested in early Gothic fiction
This is a fabulous collection representing the beginning of Gothic fiction. Otronto is the very first such work, and is a perfect illustration of the basic themes and plotlines predominant in Gothic. Although not themost polished work of fiction, it's often so bad it's funny, and definitelyworth reading. The other stories are much more professional, albeit a bitdrier reading. I'm especially fond of Vathek, as it more clearly representsfear fiction as it was to become. Dr. Polidori's piece is particularlyintersting as he was a physician and present at the famousghost-story-telling session(s) of Byron and the Shelley couple.

On thewhole, this collection is the ideal glimpse into the genre at itsrudimentary level. ... Read more

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In 1816, John William Polidori travelled to Geneva as Lord Byron's personal physician. There they met Mary Godwin (later Shelley) and her lover Percy Shelley and decided to while away a wet summer by writing ghost stories. The only two to complete their stories were Mary Shelley, who published Frankenstein in 1818, and Polidori, whose The Vampyre and Ernestus Berchtold were both published in 1819.

The Vampyre, based on a discarded idea of Byron's, is the first portrayal of the alluring vampire figure familiar to readers of Bram Stoker and Anne Rice. Ernestus Berchtold scandalously draws on the rumours of Byron's affair with his half-sister for a Faustian updating of the myth of Oedipus, which it combines with an account of the struggle of Swiss patriots against the Napoleonic invasion.

Along with Polidori's work, this edition also includes stories read and written by the travellers in the Genevan summer of 1816 and contemporary responses to The Vampyre and Ernestus Berchtold. ... Read more

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Three Gothic Novels ... Read more

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A useful collection
A fantastic introduction to the origins of gothic literature. While the quality of the writing itself is occasionally questionable, the roots which this publication symbolizes is highly important in gothic studies. From the first English gothic tale to the first English vampire novella, the reading of this text is an experience worth enduring. ... Read more