THE VAMPYRE; A TALE. London: Printed for Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, 1819. Octavo, pp. [i-vii] viii-xvi [xvii-xix] xx-xxv [xxvi] [27] 28-84 , half title leaf present; has "extract," pages 73-84, later unprinted drab paper wrappers (with scattered insect tracking), all edges untrimmed. First edition, first printing. The last of the five issues, the third with the Sherwood, Neely, and Jones imprint (preliminary leaves [pages (i)-xvi] completely reset; 23 lines instead of 24). The significance of the misprint "lmost" for "almost," page 36, last line, is unknown. It is spelled correctly in the fourth issue (Viets III) and the "a" is missing in the fifth issue (Viets IV). Polidori's story was published in the 1 April 1819 number of the NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE as "The Vampyre; a Tale by Lord Byron." When "The Vampyre" was being set in type by J. Gillet in March 1819 for the magazine appearance, editor Henry Colburn made arrangements to publish the story in book form. Shortly before commission of his ill-advised deception on 1 April – knowingly attributing Polidori's tale to Byron – Colburn turned over the sheets of the book as set up by Gillet to another London publisher, Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, in time for them to enter it at Stationer's Hall on 27 March. Colburn retained his own title leaves but the rest of the book was left intact. For the first of the Sherwood, Neely, and Jones issues, title leaves were printed attributing the story to "The Right Honourable Lord Byron" with Polidori's name omitted. This fabrication was quickly suppressed and a second issue was produced with Byron's name omitted and no attribution of authorship on the title page. A single copy of the first state of the book with the Colburn imprint and the attribution "Related by Lord Byron to Dr. Polidori" is known to have survived (offered for sale by Serendipity Books in the 1990s; present location not known); only two copies of the second are recorded (CLO; BL). Only one copy of Sherwood, Neely, and Jones's first issue appears to have survived (BL); their second issue is more common and was the one widely distributed for review; this third issue is less common than their second issue. Signature [A] of this last Sherwood, Neely, and Jones issue is entirely reset with substitutions and omissions, including the removal of an offensive reference to Lord Byron "having in his house two sisters [nineteen year old Mary Shelley and "Claire" Clairmont, Mary's stepsister and Byron's former mistress, a girl of eighteen]] as the partakers his revels." "Generally recognized as the first vampire story in English literature, Polidori's novella is the forerunner of the sophisticated vampirism of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's 'Carmilla,' Bram Stoker's DRACULA, and in the twentieth century, Anne Rice's INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE." - Tymn (ed), Horror Literature 1-304. Ashley, Who's Who in Horror and Fantasy Fiction, pp. 147-48. Barron (ed), Horror Literature 1-79. Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction 1323. Carter, The Vampire in Literature, pp. 23-5. Cox, The Transylvanian Library 1. Frost, The Monster with a Thousand Faces, pp. 38-9. Sullivan (ed), The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural, pp. 328-29. Summers, A Gothic Bibliography, pp. 542-43. Bleiler (1978), p. 159. Reginald 11798. Wolff 5577. Wise, II, pp. 71-2. Viets IV. Mild dust soiling to half title and title leaves, finger marks to upper margin of page ix, insect tracking to lower fore-edge margins of last two leaves of "extract" (F1 and F2). Overall, a very nice copy. (#85171).
Price: $3,750.00
No statement of printing.