First edition of The Vampyre by Polidori fetches for 3,800 at auction | Diss and Harleston News – Diss Mercury

PUBLISHED: 13:44 30 January 2020 | UPDATED: 14:26 30 January 2020

Simon Parkin

First edition of seminal work of gothic horror The Vampyre: A Tale by John William Polidori sold at auction in Diss. Picture: TW Gaze

TW Gaze

A rare first edition of the first vampire story published in English, 80 years before Dracula, has been sold at a Norfolk auction for 3,800.

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The seminal work of gothic horror The Vampyre: A Tale by John William Polidori, Lord Byron's physician, published in 1819, sold at TW Gaze in Diss as part of a specialist book sale.

The novel is said to have been part of the same contest between Polidori, Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, and Percy Shelley that also produced the novel Frankenstein.

It seen as the work that pioneered the romantic vampire genre of fantasy fiction. Bram Stoker's Dracula was published much later in 1897.

Other notable books in the sale was a collection of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings that sold for 2,000; a first edition Bram Stoker's Famous Impostors 2,800; and 1867 copies of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland tales at fetched 1,900.

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First edition of The Vampyre by Polidori fetches for 3,800 at auction | Diss and Harleston News - Diss Mercury

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero