The Vampyre by John Polidori | full audiobook

This week, still in the Halloween spirit, we bring you what is widely regarded as the first modern vampire Tale, a short story called 'The Vampyre' by John Polidori. It is notable as the second most famous piece of literature to come out of the legendary ghost story competition held between Byron and Shelley and their friends over a wet weekend on the shores of Lake Geneva. That contest gave us 'Frankenstein' as well as this, the first story to fuse together various and disparate folk tales of the vampyre and the undead, and give us a modern narrative that would go on to inspire Bram Stoker and a host of other gothic horror writers.

Thank you for watching! All images and sound used in this video are owned by the content creator or available in the public domain.

I would like to thank my patrons: Toni A, Joshua Clark, Maura Lee, Jane, John Bowles, Glen Thrasher, Ruairi, Cade Norman, Chris, Britt and Silja Tanner.

[mastersadvocate]

Thank you so much for this gothic vampyre story! I did not know if the book still existed! You have a lovely voice, Robert! Cheers! ~Janet in Canada

[mauralee]

This was a fabulous story! Thank you Robert!

[jakeserb]

It's been 2 months since your last post, are you still doing these? Please continue Robert! Appreciate You!

[itzakpoelzig]

Wonderful, thank you for providing this! I was recently reminded of the movie Haunted Summer (1988), which is about the "wet weekend" when this story and Frankenstein were conceived, and I thought I'd seek this story out and see how it holds up. I only wish it was longer! Or that Polidori had written more stories.

(P.S. When you keep calling Aubrey "lie", is that a typo in your book for "he"? I see that particular transposition a lot in books that have been machine-transcripted from older documents and never subjected to a human proofreader, which many print on demand services do. Another common typo of the sort is "me" to "nie." It's part of my job to find these things, so that's why it caught my attention.)

[eri-]

Polidori’s wrote this short story The Vampyre, forerunner of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, while in Geneva Switzerland.

[laughingvampire]

Byron's story wasn't about vampires, Polidori added that

[lowspark]

A wonderful and and important story wonderfully well read.

[jakeserb]

It's been over a month! Please come out with some new content & stories! Appreciate You Robert!

[Raewoo]

Your Dorian Gray drew me in. Xo you are phenomenal

[georgeetboom]

I recognise you voice but I carnt remember from where, somthing to do with Tolkien

[jakeserb]

C'mon Robert you can't ce done?! Please keep em coming!

[Cthulhuismyhero]

Just came across your channel and love your style! The story is awesome but it has a lot of words and phrases that are no longer used so it's hard to understand exactly what he's trying to convey. I can almost always suss out the gist usually but not this time. 😊

[lexwithbub]

Please tell me you're the same Robert that does In Deep Geek? If not you're voice twins!

[IanMcFerran]

Overly descriptive with needless details. 👎