The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre (Various)

It's October; time for the macabre.  As can be insinuated from the title, The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre is a selection of 14 short stories by various nineteenth-century authors on gruesome subjects.  The goal "is to exhibit the variety and vitality of the terror-tales and similarly macabre fiction published in the rival magazines of London and Dublin, in the two decades following the appearance of Polidori’s tale; that is, the 1820s and 1830s."  Vampires, the dead returning, murder most foul, demonic visitations, body snatchers, people hidden away for years or buried alive . . . it's the standard fare of the genre.  I had read two of the authors (James Hogg and Sheridan Le Fanu) previously.

All stories contained herein are eloquent, though some are difficult to follow (long/convoluted sentences, references to events unfamiliar to modern readers, and Scottish dialects contributed).  Most are told well and suspenseful; I enjoyed this overall.  I chose the book for the title tale, written in 1819 by John Polidori (but erroneously attributed to Lord Byron at its publishing), which kicked off a vampire craze that Bram Stoker would solidify almost 80 years later with Dracula:

The story had made an indelible impression on the imagination of Europe, and Polidori had succeeded, however inadvertently, in founding the entire modern tradition of vampire fiction. Not only was his tale the first sustained fictional treatment of vampirism in English, it also completely recast the mythology upon which it drew.

While this collection isn't quite as good as the stories of M.R. James, it's worth a look.

Rating: A-