We could add many curious and interesting notices on this singularly horrible superstition, and we may, perhaps, resume our observations upon it at some future opportunity; for the present, we feel that we have very far exceeded the limits of a note, necessarily devoted to the explanation of the strange production to which we now invite the attention of our readers; and we shall therefore conclude by merely remarking, that though the term Vampyre is the one in most general acceptation, there are several others synonimous with it, which are made use of in various parts of the world, namely, Vroucolocha, Vardoulacha, Goul, Broucoloka, &c.—ED.)
APPENDIX B
NOTE ON THE VAMPYRE
John Polidori
THIS note by John Polidori was published as part of the Introduction to his only full-length novel, Ernestus Berchtold, which appeared, like The Vampyre, in 1819. The note is appended to the opening sentence, which reads: ‘The tale here presented to the public is the one I began at Coligny, when Frankenstein was planned, and when a noble author having determined to descend from his lofty range, gave up a few hours to a tale of terror, and wrote the fragment published at the end of Mazeppa.’
THE tale which lately appeared, and to which his lordship’s name was wrongfully attached, was founded upon the groundwork upon which this fragment was to have been continued. Two friends were to travel from England into Greece; while there, one of them should die, but before his death, should obtain from his friend an oath of secrecy with regard to his decease. Some short time after, the remaining traveller returning to his native country, should be startled at perceiving his former companion moving about in society, and should be horrified at finding that he made love to his former friend’s sister. Upon this foundation I built the Vampyre, at the request of a lady, who denied the possibility of such a ground-work forming the outline of a tale which should bear the slightest appearance of probability. In the course of three mornings, I produced that tale, and left it with her. From thence it appears to have fallen into the hands of some person, who sent it to the Editor in such a way, as to leave it so doubtful from his words, whether it was his lordship’s or not, that I found some difficulty in vindicating it to myself. These circumstances were stated in a letter sent to the Morning Chronicle three days after the publication of the tale, but in consequence of the publishers representing to me that they were compromised as well as myself, and that immediately they were certain it was mine, that they themselves would wish to make the amende honorable to the public, I allowed them to recall the letter which had lain some days at that paper’s office.
APPENDIX C
AUGUSTUS DARVELL
Lord Byron
THIS tale by Lord Byron is his contribution to the ghost story competition of 1816, and was first published at the end of his Mazeppa (1819), where it was entitled ‘A Fragment’ and dated ‘June 17, 1816’. Byron sent the tale to his publisher John Murray shortly after The Vampyre appeared, in order to demonstrate ‘how far it resembles Mr. Colburn’s publication’. He instructed Murray: ‘If you choose to publish it in the Edinburgh Magazine (Wilsons & Blackwoods) you may—stating why, & with such explanatory proem as you please.’ Murray apparently decided not to publish it in Blackwood’s, and instead appended it to Mazeppa, though without a ‘proem’ or Byron’s permission, a decision that clearly irked Byron even a year later: ‘I shall not allow you to play the tricks you did last year with the prose you postscribed to Mazeppa—which I sent to you not to be published if not in a periodical paper, & there you tacked it without a word of explanation and be damned to you’ (Byron, Letters, vi. 126; vii. 58).
IN THE year 17—, having for some time determined on a journey through countries not hitherto much frequented by travellers, I set out, accompanied by a friend, whom I shall designate by the name of Augustus Darvell. He was a few years my elder, and a man of considerable fortune and ancient family—advantages which an extensive capacity prevented him alike from undervaluing or overrating. Some peculiar circumstances in his private history had rendered him to me an object of attention, of interest, and even of regard, which neither the reserve of his manners, nor occasional indications of an inquietude at times nearly approaching to alienation of mind, could extinguish.
I was yet young in life, which I had begun early; but my intimacy with him was of a recent date: we had been educated at the same schools and university; but his progress through these had preceded mine, and he had been deeply initiated into what is called the world, while I was yet in my noviciate. While thus engaged, I had heard much both of his past and present life; and although in these accounts there were many and irreconcileable contradictions, I could still gather from the whole that he was a being of no common order, and one who, whatever pains he might take to avoid remark, would still be remarkable. I had cultivated his acquaintance subsequently, and endeavoured to obtain his friendship, but this last appeared to be unattainable; whatever affections he might have possessed seemed now, some to have been extinguished, and others to be concentred: that his feelings were acute, I had sufficient opportunities of observing; for, although he could control, he could not altogether disguise them: still he had a power of giving to one passion the appearance of another in such a manner that it was difficult to define the nature of what was working within him; and the expressions of his features would vary so rapidly, though slightly, that it was useless to trace them to their sources. It was evident that he was a prey to some cureless disquiet; but whether it arose from ambition, love, remorse, grief, from one or all of these, or merely from a morbid temperament akin to disease, I could not discover: there were circumstances alleged, which might have justified the application to each of these causes; but, as I have before said, these were so contradictory and contradicted, that none could be fixed upon with accuracy. Where there is mystery, it is generally supposed that there must also be evil: I know not how this may be, but in him there certainly was the one, though I could not ascertain the extent of the other—and felt loth, as far as regarded himself, to believe in its existence. My advances were received with sufficient coldness; but I was young, and not easily discouraged, and at length succeeded in obtaining, to a certain degree, that common-place intercourse and moderate confidence of common and every day concerns, created and cemented by similarity of pursuit and frequency of meeting, which is called intimacy, or friendship, according to the ideas of him who uses those words to express them.
Darvell had already travelled extensively; and to him I had applied for information with regard to the conduct of my intended journey. It was my secret wish that he might be prevailed on to accompany me: it was also a probable hope, founded upon the shadowy restlessness which I had observed in him, and to which the animation which he appeared to feel on such subjects, and his apparent indifference to all by which he was more immediately surrounded, gave fresh strength. This wish I first hinted, and then expressed: his answer, though I had partly expected it, gave me all the pleasure of surprise—he consented; and, after the requisite arrangements, we commenced our voyages. After journeying through various countries of the south of Europe, our attention was turned towards the East, according to our original destination; and it was in my progress through those regions that the incident occurred upon which will turn what I may have to relate.
The constitution of Darvell, which must from his appearance have been in early life more than usually robust, had been for some time gradually giving way, without the intervention of any apparent disease: he had neither cough nor hectic,* yet he became daily more enfeebled: his habits were temperate, and he neither declined nor complained of fatigue, yet he was evidently wasting away: he became more and more silent and sleepless, and at length so seriously altered, that my alarm grew proportionate to what I conceived to be his danger.
We had determined, on our arrival at Smyrna, on an excursion to the ruins of Ephesus and Sardis,* from which I endeavoured to dissuade him in his present state of indisposition—but in vain: there appeared to be an oppression on
his mind, and a solemnity in his manner, which ill corresponded with his eagerness to proceed on what I regarded as a mere party of pleasure, little suited to a valetudinarian; but I opposed him no longer—and in a few days we set off together, accompanied only by a serrugee and a single janizary.*
We had passed halfway towards the remains of Ephesus, leaving behind us the more fertile environs of Smyrna, and were entering upon that wild and tenantless track through the marshes and defiles which lead to the few huts yet lingering over the broken columns of Diana—the roofless walls of expelled Christianity, and the still more recent but complete desolation of abandoned mosques—when the sudden and rapid illness of my companion obliged us to halt at a Turkish cemetery, the turbaned tombstones of which were the sole indication that human life had ever been a sojourner in this wilderness. The only caravansera* we had seen was left some hours behind us, not a vestige of a town or even cottage was within sight or hope, and this ‘city of the dead’ appeared to be the sole refuge for my unfortunate friend, who seemed on the verge of becoming the last of its inhabitants.
In this situation, I looked round for a place where he might most conveniently repose:—contrary to the usual aspect of Mahometan burial-grounds, the cypresses were in this few in number, and these thinly scattered over its extent: the tombstones were mostly fallen, and worn with age:—upon one of the most considerable of these, and beneath one of the most spreading trees, Darvell supported himself, in a half-reclining posture, with great difficulty. He asked for water. I had some doubts of our being able to find any, and prepared to go in search of it with hesitating despondency—but he desired me to remain; and turning to Suleiman, our janizary, who stood by us smoking with great tranquillity, he said, ‘Suleiman, verbana su,’ (i.e. bring some water,) and went on describing the spot where it was to be found with great minuteness, at a small well for camels, a few hundred yards to the right: the janizary obeyed. I said to Darvell, ‘How did you know this?’—He replied, ‘From our situation; you must perceive that this place was once inhabited, and could not have been so without springs: I have also been here before.’
‘You have been here before!—How came you never to mention this to me? and what could you be doing in a place where no one would remain a moment longer than they could help it?’
To this question I received no answer. In the mean time Suleiman returned with the water, leaving the serrugee and the horses at the fountain. The quenching of his thirst had the appearance of reviving him for a moment; and I conceived hopes of his being able to proceed, or at least to return, and I urged the attempt. He was silent—and appeared to be collecting his spirits for an effort to speak. He began.
‘This is the end of my journey, and of my life—I came here to die: but I have a request to make, a command—for such my last words must be—You will observe it?’
‘Most certainly; but have better hopes.’
‘I have no hopes, nor wishes, but this—conceal my death from every human being.’
‘I hope there will be no occasion; that you will recover, and—’
‘Peace!—it must be so: promise this.’
‘I do.’
‘Swear it, by all that’—He here dictated an oath of great solemnity.
‘There is no occasion for this—I will observe your request; and to doubt me is—’
‘It cannot be helped,—you must swear.’
I took the oath: it appeared to relieve him. He removed a seal ring from his finger, on which were some Arabic characters, and presented it to me. He proceeded—
‘On the ninth day of the month, at noon precisely (what month you please, but this must be the day), you must fling this ring into the salt springs which run into the Bay of Eleusis: the day after, at the same hour, you must repair to the ruins of the temple of Ceres, and wait one hour.’
‘Why?’
‘You will see.’
‘The ninth day of the month, you say?’
‘The ninth.’
As I observed that the present was the ninth day of the month, his countenance changed, and he paused. As he sate, evidently becoming more feeble, a stork, with a snake in her beak,* perched upon a tombstone near us; and, without devouring her prey, appeared to be stedfastly regarding us. I know not what impelled me to drive it away, but the attempt was useless; she made a few circles in the air, and returned exactly to the same spot. Darvell pointed to it, and smiled: he spoke—I know not whether to himself or to me—but the words were only, ‘’Tis well!’
‘What is well? what do you mean?’
‘No matter: you must bury me here this evening, and exactly where that bird is now perched. You know the rest of my injunctions.’
He then proceeded to give me several directions as to the manner in which his death might be best concealed. After these were finished, he exclaimed, ‘You perceive that bird?’
‘Certainly.’
‘And the serpent writhing in her beak?’
‘Doubtless: there is nothing uncommon in it; it is her natural prey. But it is odd that she does not devour it.’
He smiled in a ghastly manner, and said, faintly, ‘It is not yet time!’ As he spoke, the stork flew away. My eyes followed it for a moment, it could hardly be longer than ten might be counted. I felt Darvell’s weight, as it were, increase upon my shoulder, and, turning to look upon his face, perceived that he was dead.
I was shocked with the sudden certainty which could not be mistaken—his countenance in a few minutes became nearly black. I should have attributed so rapid a change to poison, had I not been aware that he had no opportunity of receiving it unperceived. The day was declining, the body was rapidly altering, and nothing remained but to fulfil his request. With the aid of Suleiman’s ataghan* and my own sabre, we scooped a shallow grave upon the spot which Darvell had indicated: the earth easily gave way, having already received some Mahometan tenant. We dug as deeply as the time permitted us, and throwing the dry earth upon all that remained of the singular being so lately departed, we cut a few sods of greener turf from the less withered soil around us, and laid them upon his sepulchre.
Between astonishment and grief, I was tearless.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Edward Bulwer (1803–73) was born in London and educated at Cambridge. He entered Parliament as a Radical in 1831, and later as a Tory in 1852, becoming Secretary for the Colonies in 1858. Upon inheriting his family’s Knebworth estate in 1843, he adopted his mother’s surname, becoming Edward Bulwer Lytton. He was one of the most popular novelists of the day, and published with great success in a number of different genres: historical romances like The Last Days of Pompeii (1834), silver-fork novels of high society like Pelham (1828), works of science fiction like A Strange Story (1862) and The Coming Race (1871), Newgate novels like Paul Clifford (1830) and Eugene Aram (1832), and novels of middle-class domestic life, including The Caxtons (1849) and What Will He Do With It? (1858). He also wrote eleven volumes of poetry, hugely successful plays, and a pioneering sociological study, England and the English (1833). Bulwer was editor of the New Monthly Magazine from 1831 to 1833; later, some of his best fiction was serialized in Blackwood’s. See James Campbell, Edward Bulwer-Lytton (Boston, 1986).
William Carleton (1794–1869), a native of County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, received little formal education and spent a good deal of his youth wandering the Irish countryside. At 17 he prepared for the Catholic priesthood, but converted to the Church of Ireland some time before 1830. His keen observation of rural life is evident in his two series of Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry (1830 and 1833), and in Tales of Ireland (1834). He wrote several novels, including Fardorougha the Miser (1839), Rody the Rover; or, the Ribbonman (1845), and The Evil Eye (1860), as well as more than seventy tales, poems, and essays for a dozen Irish periodicals, including The Christian Examiner, The Dublin Literary Gazette, and The Dublin University Magazine. See Eileen A. Sullivan, William Carleton (Boston, 1983).
Allan Cunningham (1784–
1842) was born in Keir, Dumfriesshire, and as a boy idolized Scott and walked in the funeral procession of Burns. He was apprenticed at 11 as a stonemason, and the trade supported him for the rest of his life. After 1810 he lived almost exclusively in London. He is best known for Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song (1810), the historical novel Paul Jones (1826), an edition of The Works of Robert Burns (1834), and a handful of ballads, especially ‘A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea’ (1825). His first magazine fiction was commissioned by Blackwood’s in 1819, but he later contributed to the London and the New Monthly. See David Hogg, The Life of Allan Cunningham (London, 1875).
Catherine Gore (1800–61) was born Catherine Moody and married an officer, Charles Gore, in 1823. They had ten children together. Gore’s first novel, Theresa Marchmont, appeared in 1824, and over the next thirty-five years she produced nearly seventy volumes of drama, poetry, and fiction. Women as They Are, or Manners of the Day (1830), Mothers and Daughters (1831), and Cecil: or the Adventures of a Coxcomb (1841) established her as the leading practitioner of the silver-fork novels of high society, though other novels such as The Hamiltons, or the New Era (1834) and Mrs Armytage, or Female Domination (1836) deal with weightier issues. Her tales and verses appeared frequently in a number of leading magazines, including Bentley’s, the New Monthly, and Tait’s. See Bonnie Anderson, ‘The Writings of Catherine Gore’ in Journal of Popular Culture, 10 (1976), 404–23.
James Hogg (1770–1835) was born in Ettrick Forest, and spent some of his youth as a shepherd before joining the literary life of Edinburgh in 1810. He settled as a farmer at Yarrow from 1816. His principal works include Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824), Songs by the Ettrick Shepherd (1831), and The Domestic Manners and Private Life of Sir Walter Scott (1834). Hogg published most of his magazine fiction in Blackwood’s, but other pieces appeared in Fraser’s, the Metropolitan, the New Monthly, and the Dublin University. See Lewis Simpson, James Hogg: A Critical Study (Edinburgh, 1962).
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