Victorian Vampire Stories

It's rare to come across a collection of short stories that is so engaging as the collection I am reading now. Of course one must be an aficionado of vampire and horror stories to truly appreciate them, and I am. The only other collection of short stories in the horror genre that I feel the same way about was the one I read back in 2020--H.P. Lovecraft's horror stories. They were individual masterpieces for the most part and I wrote a post at that time about his stories and how much I enjoyed them: A New Yorker in Oslo: The creepy and engrossing stories of H.P. Lovecraft (paulamdeangelis.blogspot.com)

The collection of vampire stories I am currently reading is entitled Dracula's Guest: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Vampire Stories, edited by Michael Sims (available on Amazon at Dracula's Guest (Connoisseur's Collections): Sims, Michael: 9781408809969: Amazon.com: Books ). The Victorian Era extended from 1837 to 1901 and was an era filled with social change and political reforms, despite being described as a repressive era, especially sexually. The stories in this collection were written/published during this time. You might think that the Victorians, being the straight-laced repressed people they are often described as, would not be writing (or reading) these types of stories. You'd be wrong. The writing styles are at times verbose and overly-descriptive, but the plots are engrossing, strange, and often creepy. There are stories about entire families that become vampires (The Family of the Vourdalak--quite scary if you can visualize it as an eventual movie, as I could), one about an invisible vampire (What Was It?), one about a very old woman whose younger companion, a male doctor, supplies her with young blood to keep her alive (Good Lady Ducayne), and one about a man who remarries after his first wife dies but who wishes that his first wife could live again (Wake Not the Dead). There are many others that are similarly strange and engrossing, so I recommend buying the book to read them all.  

I found reading the short descriptions about the authors almost as interesting as the stories themselves. Leo Tolstoy's brother, Aleksei, wrote The Family of the Vourdalak; he was a talented writer in his own right. Good Lady Ducayne was written by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, considered to be a premier sensation novelist (one who wrote nerve-wracking and thrilling, sometimes titillating novels). Other stories were written by the romantic poet Lord Byron, and Anne Crawford (who came from a family of artists and writers). These writers may not have described everything in explicit detail, but there was no need to. Readers understand what is said and what is implied, and that is sufficient. These writers were in no way repressed; far from it. 

The creepy and engrossing stories of H.P. Lovecraft

It’s been well over twenty years since I purchased The Best of H.P. Lovecraft (Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre). At that time, I read perhaps one of the short stories in this collection, The Rats in the Walls, but that is the only one I can recall reading. I recently picked up the book again following the recent release of the movie Color Out of Space, which is based on Lovecraft’s short story The Colour Out of Space. I have not seen the movie, but decided to read the short story instead, and am now reading the entire collection of short stories and enjoying them.

Lovecraft is a master horror writer. Born in 1890, he wrote prodigiously until his death in 1937; he didn’t live a long life, but he left behind a literary legacy that endures to this day. It’s hard to describe what it is that captures and draws you into his stories, but it only takes a page or two and I’m hooked into yet another short story. I don’t know if I would describe his tales as bloodcurdling; I would rather describe them as creeping terror, or as a gradual build-up to what you know are going to be fear- and anxiety-inducing events. Stephen King has stated that “H.P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the twentieth century’s greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale”. High praise coming from a master horror writer himself. King grew up reading Lovecraft’s tales, and Lovecraft himself was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849). We read a fair amount of Poe in school as children/young teenagers, but not Lovecraft.

I know from my reading and searching online that readers either like Lovecraft’s classic prose and phrasings, or they don’t. I happen to be one of the readers who do like his style. He is wordy, but he chooses his words carefully (some would say he is old-fashioned and that’s fine with me), and there aren’t many wasted sentences. He doesn’t write or present details like a journalist, and is excellent at crafting his tales. Each tale deals with a different kind of horror, and the protagonists, educated and logical men, are sceptical at first to what they find themselves dealing with, only to understand (in the nick of time) that what they were sceptical of is in fact real (or surreal) and life-threatening. My favorite stories are not necessarily the ones that his diehard fans would hold up as their favorites. In the collection that I am almost finished reading, I would say my favorite stories are the following:

·        The Picture in the House  (the build-up to the suggestion of a grim end for the protagonist is nerve-wracking)

·        In the Vault  (just plain creepy, something you might find in Tales from the Crypt)

·        The Whisperer in Darkness  (cosmic horror = fear of the unknown, of the cosmos, of all things alien)

·        The Colour Out of Space  (cosmic horror about a meteor that crashes to earth and the after-effects)

·        The Haunter of the Dark  (the unwitting unleashing of a satanic-like monster)

·        The Thing on the Doorstep  (wizardry, mental telepathy, mind transfer—plain creepy)

·        The Shadow Over Innsmouth  (part of the Cthulhu mythos)

The Call of Cthulhu is also part of this collection of short stories. After digging into Lovecraft’s background, I found out that there is an entire cult mythos built up around the monster Cthulhu, and that the book The Necronomicon that is mentioned in several of his stories, while fictional, is thought to be real by some people. The Shadow Over Innsmouth is part of this mythos, and I found it to be much more terrifying than The Call of Cthulhu because of the pursuit of the protagonist by the townspeople (monsters) and how the realization of his strange ancestry slowly dawns on the protagonist. Lovecraft writes in an exceptionally visual way; his descriptions of the fictional town Innsmouth (in Massachusetts) allowed me to imagine it, such that when I saw it depicted in artists’ pictures online, I thought, yes, that’s how I would have seen it too. He is not big on dialog between his characters, but for some reason that is not a problem for me. He explains the motives and thoughts of his characters in great detail, and that suffices. 

Lovecraft has inspired many writers and filmmakers to this day—among them the writer Stephen King and director Guillermo Del Toro. HR Giger’s monster in the Alien movies was inspired by Lovecraft’s writings, likewise John Carpenter’s creation The Thing, according to online searches. I would add that some of the X-Files episodes bear a Lovecraftian influence, especially those episodes that deal with insular townspeople, xenophobia, and strange goings-on. Those are the episodes where Mulder and Scully visit such towns and out-of-the-way places, and all the while you sit and watch and are anxious for them, wanting them to leave as soon as possible. The X-Files remains one of my favorite shows, precisely because the show took the same kinds of bold risks in its storytelling as Lovecraft did with his.

I am nearing the end of this collection of short stories/novellas, and I really don’t want them to end. Lovecraft has created a universe that you are very glad you don’t live in, but that fascinates you nonetheless. You can ‘visit’ it safely via his tales. He is an excellent writer; I’m surprised that it took me over twenty years to appreciate him, but thankfully, I can do so now.