Polidori's The Vampyre

In Our Time: Culture

BBC

History

4.6 • 978 Ratings

🗓️ 5 May 2022

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influential novella of John Polidori (1795-1821) published in 1819 and attributed first to Lord Byron (1788-1824) who had started a version of it in 1816 at the Villa Diodati in the Year Without A Summer. There Byron, his personal physician Polidori, Mary and Percy Shelley and Claire Clairmont had whiled away the weeks of miserable weather by telling ghost stories, famously giving rise to Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein'. Emerging soon after, 'The Vampyre' thrilled readers with its aristocratic Lord Ruthven who glutted his thirst with the blood of his victims, his status an abrupt change from the stories of peasant vampires of eastern and central Europe that had spread in the 18th Century with the expansion of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The connection with Lord Byron gave the novella a boost, and soon 'The Vampyre' spawned West End plays, penny dreadfuls such as 'Varney the Vampire', Bram Stoker’s 'Dracula', F.W Murnau's film 'Nosferatu A Symphony of Horror', and countless others.

The image above is of Bela Lugosi (1882-1956) as Count Mora in Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer's 'Vampires of Prague' (1935)

With

Nick Groom Professor of Literature in English at the University of Macau

Samantha George Associate Professor of Research in Literature at the University of Hertfordshire

And

Martyn Rady Professor Emeritus of Central European History at University College London

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Transcript

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0:49.6	Hello in 1819, John Polydory's novella, the vampire, thrilled readers with his aristocratic
0:55.8	Lord Riven who glutted his thirst with the blood of his victims.
1:00.1	Polydory's personal link with Lord Byron gave it a boost, and soon the vampires spawned
1:05.0	West End plays, Pended Redfals, Bramstocca's Dracula, Nosferrato and ever onwards.
1:10.8	And noble Lord Riven was an abrupt change from stories of peasant vampires of Eastern Europe,
1:15.8	scrutinised by scientists, philosophers and doctors over the previous century to see if they were true.
1:22.0	With me to discuss polydore as the Vampire and Vumpires are Nick
1:25.5	Groom, professor of literature in English at the University of Macau, Sam George,
1:30.4	associate professor of research in literature at the University of Hertfordshire
	...

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