Reading Verne's Voyages Extraordinaires

L'Epave du Cynthia (The Waif of the Cynthia, 1885) (1 volume) 71K words


This novel was published as cowritten by Jules Verne and Andre Laurie (pseudonym used by Paschal Grousset), but modern scholars believe the actual writing was done by Laurie and Verne's role was that of supervisor and corrector. It is not officially part of the Voyages Extraordinaires, although the edition and the type of story are similar. The story begins in Norway and eventually takes us on a sailing trip all around the Arctic Circle.


First read or reread?: First read for me.


What is it about?: Erik Hersebom is a Norwegian boy from a small fishing town, endowed with a remarkable intelligence. However, there is something else unusual about him: he does not have the characteristic physical features of the Scandinavian people. He looks like a Celt. Doctor Schwaryencrona takes him under his wing and finances his education. The doctor discovers that Erik was adopted by his family of Norwegian fishermen, after being saved from the sea when he was only a few months old, attached to a lifebuoy with the word "Cynthia". Once grown up, with the help of the Doctor, Erik will seek to elucidate the mystery of the sinking of the Cynthia to find a trace of his origins. This quest will lead him through the polar seas and Siberia.


I mentioned that this book is not part of the Extraordinary Voyages. You might wonder what this means exactly. OK, so this book was published as co-written by Verne and another writer, and nowadays scholars think the other writer probably did the actual writing. However, we have seen that the posthumous Extraordinary Voyages were modified by Michel Verne, with one of them ("The Thompson Travel Agency") possibly written by Michel alone. So then, why are those posthumous novels part of the Voyages, but not "The Waif of the Cynthia"?

The answer is that the Extraordinary Voyages is a series only in the sense that they were published with that label by Verne's publisher, Hetzel. "The Waif of the Cynthia" was also published by Hetzel, and the edition looks more or less similar to the ones used for Verne's Extraordinary Voyages. However, the publisher did not include it as part of the series, so that's why the posthumous novels and the two short story collections are part of the Voyages, while "The Waif of the Cynthia" isn't. Just a question of labels.

In my case, the collection of Verne novels that I have includes this novel, so I have also included it in my reading project. I have read it after the other novels, but actually it was published in 1885, in the middle of Verne's career.

So let's talk about the book. I have to say that I found it an enjoyable read. It's an adventure story, with a plot that wouldn't be out of place among the Extraordinary Voyages. The writing style was slightly different from Jules Verne's, which is something I did not notice in "The Thompson Travel Agency", for example.

It's not a huge difference, though, and I don't really mention it as a bad thing. There are fewer geographic descriptions, and more emotional content. There was more emphasis on the feelings of the characters, for example how Erik's adoptive family feels about his search for his biological family, and how Erik himself feels about it. Some moments are quite emotive, more than we would expect in a Verne story.

It wasn't a long novel (just one volume). I thought the pacing was good, and it kept me interested throughout. I did think at some point, when they were investigating by sending letters and discussing the responses, that I would like it if they actually travelled in person to investigate, but they quickly did just that, and once they did I have no complaint about the amount of adventure and exploring, in search of a disappeared sailor who might have relevant information. The novel reminded me a little of "In Search of the Castaways" because of the investigation element.

So the plot is very Verne-like, and the style, while not the exactly the same, is not that different. It's similar to Verne's adventure stories, without any speculative element.

One thing that was similar to Verne is how it foreshadows which characters are villains. This is something that is quite Verne-like. The character-related twists in Verne's novels often do not come as a surprise, which is something some modern readers complain about, but I have come to accept as part of his storytelling style.


Enjoyment factor: I enjoyed it. It was more emotional than most Extraordinary Voyages, but in terms of quality it was a good adventure story and it could have easily been part of the series, even if it wouldn't be among Verne's most innovative novels.
 
Last edited:
(1) Le Docteur Ox (Doctor Ox, 1874) (1 volume) 70K words

This collection, which was published by Hetzel in 1874 as part of the Extraordinary Voyages, consists of four novellas or short stories by Verne, plus a non-fictional account. The stories here are the same as in the original French edition. I understand that in English translations they changed slightly the selection of stories:


"Une fantaisie du Docteur Ox" ("Dr. Ox's Experiment," 1872)

Plot: In an extremely quiet Flemish town, a chemist called Dr. Ox is building a gas lighting system that he has offered for free. Unfortunately, Ox is a mad scientist who intends to use the substance he has invented to modify the brain chemistry of the town's inhabitants, making them more irascible.

Comment: This was a rather funny novella. The inhabitants of the imaginary town were humorous to begin with, calm and quiet to an absurd extreme, enemies of any passion. Dr. Ox's gas changes all that and makes them choleric and aggressive, willing even to go to war against a neighbouring town for the most ridiculous reasons. Verne makes some reflections about whether we are the result of our brain chemistry, but doesn't really explore this interesting subject more than that, and instead concentrates on the humorous portrait of the town's citizens, who go from one extreme in the beginning to the opposite once the gas starts changing their behavior. Other than that, the plot is slight. So, more humor than science fiction, I would say.


"Maître Zacharius" ("Master Zacharius," 1854)

Plot: Master Zacharius, perhaps the greatest and more renowned among the Swiss watchmakers falls into despair when all the watches he has made and sold stop for unknown reasons, and no one is able to repair them.

Comment: Another novella, this one a dark fantasy in the style of E.T.A. Hoffman and Edgar Alan Poe. I liked the premise, and the story was OK, but, although I appreciate his trying something different, I don’t think Verne was playing to his strengths here. Poe would have made a more terrifying portrait of this prideful watchmaker falling apart and maybe selling his soul.


"Un drame dans les airs" ("A Drama in the Air," 1851)

Plot: The narrator is about to make a hot air balloon demonstration but, just as he is about to take off, a stranger rushes into the basket and forces him to let go of ballast to rise higher and further than he expected.

Comment: This short story is written in first person, in the style of a non-fictional account even though, of course, it’s fiction. Verne was interested in flying devices and this story, originally published more than decade before “Five Weeks in a Balloon,” foreshadows that novel, showing that Verne had in mind that balloon trips could make for an interesting adventure. The plot of the novel is much more substantial, though. The intruder here takes advantage of the trip to narrate at length the story of incidents related to the human quest to fly in lighter than air devices. Imparting didactic information like this is typical of Verne’s early novels, but the problem is that here it takes up too much of the story, given its short length. The adventure, otherwise, is interesting, but I would have liked more of it.


"Un hivernage dans les glaces" ("A Winter Amid the Ice," 1855)

Plot: A captain from Dunkirk and two of his sailors were lost when trying to help a ship in difficulties in the northern seas. His father and his fiancée, not believing that he is dead, set up an expedition to look for him. Their investigation takes them deep into the Arctic Sea.

Comment: An adventure novella, very much in Verne’s style. We see elements that Verne would revisit later in his novels, like the search for a loved one lost at sea ("In Search of the Castaways", "Mistress Branican"), survival in a harsh Arctic winter ("The Adventures of Captain Hatteras", "The Fur Country"), the presence of a traitor... In particular this novella reminded me of "The Adventures of Captain Hatteras", with a ship wintering in the ice, and it also features a message in a bottle being found, like the one from "In Search of the Castaways", only in this case without anything that needed decyphering. I enjoyed it, even though it necessarily is more straightforward than his novels. There was a dubious incident when the characters got snow blindness... during the polar night (!?), supposedly due to the reflection of the Moon on the snow.


The collection also includes a short non-fictional account, "Quarantième ascension française au mont Blanc " ("The Fortieth French Ascent of Mont Blanc"), written by Verne's brother Paul. I say non-fictional because it feels like it, although I don’t know whether it really happened. But Paul gives some details that I, having been in Chamonix a few times, quite enjoyed, recognizing the places mentioned but also appreciating how different mountaineering was back then. Short and without extraordinary incidents, but ascending Mont Blanc in those times was extraordinary enough.
 
Last edited:
farseer2 said:
There was a dubious incident when the characters got snow blindness... during the polar night (!?), supposedly due to the reflection of the Moon on the snow.
Click to expand...
You'd not get snow blindness from moonlight, even though a full moon in a clear sky is very bright. A photo of the moon without making it just a white disk needs an exposure like for daylight, obvious because it's in daylight. So a nice shot with stars and full moon with details often needs two exposures and an edit. While a full moon and clear sky is enough to drive by without lights (people did in horse & carriage era), it's not bright enough for snow blindness.

Every author makes occasional factual mistakes.

Thanks again for another great summary / review.
 
Ray McCarthy said:
Every author makes occasional factual mistakes.
Click to expand...

Yes, Verne did his research, but sometimes factual mistakes slip through, like improbable wildlife on an island or too many volcanos when crossing the Andes. With the amount and availability of media we have now it's easier doing research.
 
(2) Hier et Demain (Yesterday and Tomorrow, 1910) (1 volume) 63K words

The last short story collection by Verne was published posthumously in 1910. It contains four novelettes and a couple of short stories ("In the Twenty-ninth Century: A Day in the Life of an American Journalist in 2889", and "The Humbug"). Like the previous collection ("Dr. Ox"), this one was published as part of the Extraordinary Voyages. And, like the posthumous novels in the series, the stories here were edited and modified by Jules Verne's son, Michel.

I'm reading this in Spanish, but I have to warn you that this collection is difficult to find in English. A translated collection called "Yesterday and Tomorrow" was published in 1965, but it doesn't contain two of the stories here ("Adventures of the Rat Family", and "The Humbug"), and in exchange it contains some of the stories that were originally published, not in a short story collection, but accompanying one of the Extraordinary Voyage novels. The reader in English who wants to read the whole thing would need to hunt for the missing stories somewhere else (for example, both missing stories have been published in standalone editions in English). If you are interested, https://www.isfdb.org/ is a useful resource to see where each story was published.

Having said this, let's talk about the stories.


La Famille Raton ("Adventures of the Rat Family")

Plot: The adventure takes place "in the age of fairies and magicians, and also during the time that animals talked." A whole family of rats has been magically transformed by the evil magician Gardafour and is now languishing as a family of oysters. Can Ratin, our hero, wait for Ratine, his beloved, until she is transformed to her true form once again? Can he, with the help of the fairy Firmenta, outfox Gardafour and the evil Prince Kissador, who scheme to keep the beautiful Ratine locked away forever?

Comment: As the plot indicates, this is a fairy tale for children. Verne tells it in a very colloquial tone, sometimes addressing the readers as "my dear children". I found it imaginative and occasionally amusing, although it probably went on a bit longer than it needed to.


M. Ré-Dièze et Mlle Mi-Bémol ("Mr Ray Sharp and Miss Me Flatt")

Plot: The story centers around two young children in a small village near Lake Constance in Switzerland. The town is visited by a mysterious Hungarian named Effarene, “at once artiste, tuner, organ vendor, and organ builder.” The village elders are grateful when Effarene offers to replace the recently departed church organist, but we soon learn the macabre details about his proposal to outfit the organ with a specially built register of children’s voices.

Comment: A dark fantasy tale, reminding me at times of The Pied Piper of Hamelin. It is told in first person by one of the children who sings in the school choir; the "Mr Ray Sharp" from the title refers to him, while "Miss Me Flatt" refers to the girl he likes, who also sings in the choir. The story plays with the anxieties about the dehumanization brought about by technology and mechanization. For those who hate stories where children are hurt, I'll say that the resolution was much less dark than I was expecting. A cop-out, some might say, but I did enjoy the story.


La Destinée de Jean Morénas ("The Fate of Jean Morénas")

Plot: Jean Morénas is serving a sentence of penal servitude for a crime he did not commit, the murder of his uncle Alexandre. Years later, a mysterious man gains access to the prison under the pretence of philanthropic work, but actually intending to help Jean escape and flee to a foreign country. Jean, however, has different ideas: he cannot leave without visiting his beloved Marguerite in their village. There he will face a tragic dilemma.

Comment: After two fantasy stories, this one is a more realistic family drama/adventure. The story is more tragic than you usually get with Verne, but enjoyable.


Le Humbug ("The Humbug: The American Way of Life")

Plot: On board the steamship Kentucky, traveling between New York and Albany, the French narrator meets an eccentric merchant named Meade Augustus Hopkins. Hopkins intends to found a kind of privately-owned World Fair near Albany. But, while this ambitious project is being built, an astonishing discovery is made: the gigantic skeleton of a human-like being that has been buried for countless centuries. But is it a genuine discovery, or part of the schemes of a charlatan?

Comment: I have commented elsewhere that Verne had a half admiring, half amused attitude towards US citizens. He admired their initiative and entrepreneurship, but at the same time he saw the funny side of it and liked satirising it. This is clearly apparent in this short story, which Verne presents as one of those things that could only happen in America. The over-the-top entrepreneur Hopkins has that can-do attitude that gains the admiration of his countrymen, but is he the real deal or is he full of hot air? I found the discovery of ancient human fossils an interesting subject for a Verne story, but this one concentrates on social satire much more than on paleontology. In fact, the interest here is mostly the satire, since the plot is quite basic.


Au xxixe siècle : La Journée d'un journaliste américain en 2889 ("In the Twenty-ninth Century: A Day in the Life of an American Journalist in 2889")

Plot: The story, set in the 29th century, follows a day in the life of an American journalist and businessman named Francis Bennett, who owns a newspaper called the Earth Chronicle. Throughout the story, Firmin Bennett uses various technological advancements to conduct his business and personal life, and we see some of the wonders of the future world.

Comment: A bit shorter than the other stories in the book, this is one of those science-fiction tour de forces where the author tries to anticipate what life will be like in the future, and what technological advances will be available. As often happens with these things, Verne does some interesting things extrapolating from what existed in his time, and presents suitably wondrous advances in communication, transport, energy. However, he of course missed things that he had no way of guessing, like the rise of computers, the internet and AIs. He is also blind to social change, and in that sense the society he describes is not that different from Verne's own. The positions of high qualifications and responsibility are filled by men; while the main character conducts his business, his wife is in Europe buying clothes and hats, although in frequent contact with him through teleconference. He does get some political guesses right, like the impossibility of wars between superpowers because of mutual assured destruction or China's one-child policy. All in all, it's fun seeing how Verne envisioned the future from his late 19th century perspective.


L'Éternel Adam ("The Eternal Adam")

Plot: Zartog Sofr-Aï-Sran, an archaeologist from a civilization much different from ours, is in the middle of a scientific controversy about the origins of humankind. Due to their interpretation of the archeological record, some scientists believe that humanity's ancestors lost craneal capacity at some point, before recovering it again. Zartog discovers a buried ancient document, that he is eventually able to translate. It is the journal of a man claiming to be a survivor to the total destruction of civilisation.

Comment: This may be my favorite Verne short story. It feels like a Golden Age science fiction story, with sense of wonder and a lot to think about. It's a pity Verne did not expand it into a novel.


---


With this, I have finished reading all of the Extraordinary Voyages. "The Barsac Mission" was actually published after this collection, but since I read the novels first, this is the last book I have read in the series.

I'll now finish my Verne reading project with two posthumous novels that are not part of the Voyages. They were discovered and published for the first time nearly a century after Verne's death: "Backwards to Britain" and "Paris in the Twentieth Century".
 
Last edited:
Voyage à reculons en Angleterre et en Écosse (Backwards to Britain, written 1859, first published 1989) (1 volume) 57K words


This semi-autobiographical novel (not part of the Extraordinary Voyages) is an account of the journey to England and Scotland that Jules Verne and his friend Aristide Hignard made in 1859. Verne always had a fascination for Scotland, and set two of his extraordinary voyages there ("The Child of the Cavern" and "The Green Ray").

For the novel, Verne changed the names of the characters: he became Jacques Lavaret, while his friend Aristide became Jonathan Savournon. This allowed him to take some liberties with the story, exaggerating a few passages, but mostly it was a faithful depiction of their trip.

This was the first novel that Verne had ever written. He offered it to the publisher Hetzel, but it was rejected. Verne set the manuscript aside and never tried to publish it again, until it was discovered and published in 1989, 84 years after the author's death. Soon after rejecting this novel, however, Hetzel would accept another Verne manuscript, also a travel story, this one fictional, dealing with the more timely topics of ballooning and African exploration. Thus, "Five Weeks in a Balloon" would become Jules Verne's first published novel and the first Extraordinary Voyage.

But let's come back to "Backwards to Britain". The title comes from a change of plan during the trip, as the steamer that was to take the two friends to Liverpool was delayed several days and finally docked not in Saint-Nazaire as originally intended, but in Bordeaux, forcing the travellers to go south to meet it, in a direction opposite to their final destination (thus "backwards").

The tone of the novel is light and good-humored. Jacques (Verne) is enthusiastic and full of puppyish energy, while Jonathan (Hignard) is calmer. Because of this engaging tone, it is a pleasant read, even though it's not as funny as some later Verne novels.

Verne was always a great admirer of Walter Scott, and one of his main sources of pleasure when he gets to Scotland is seeing the locations of the great Scottish novelist. This romantic view of Scotland is also contrasted with its modern, technological present. The darker side of this modern development is also acknowledged, with the two friends being impressed during the English part of their voyage by the misery of the factory workers in Liverpool.

Verne's biases are in view: while he admires the energy and the technological ingenuity of the English, he likes the Scots better, no doubt influenced by the natural beauty of Scotland and the romantical image of it he has from Scott's novels. He also admires Dickens, but Scott captures his imagination more.

Several of Verne's Extraordinary Voyages also take the form of a travelogue and feature geographical descriptions, but they are spiced up by an adventure, which is something "Backwards to Britain" lacks. Since I particularly enjoy adventure stories, this novel felt a bit lightweight to me, pleasant enough but not as enjoyable as Verne's adventure stories. Even though the point of view of French travellers in Britain at the height of the Victorian era is interesting, this remains an obscure entry in Verne's bibliography, and will only be read by the most thorough Verne fans, or by those particularly interested in Scotland and England travelogues or in Walter Scott's settings.
 
Last edited:
Paris au XXe siècle (Paris in the Twentieth Century, written around 1860, first published 1994) (1 volume) 38K words


Like "Backwards to Britain", Verne wrote this around 1860, when he still had not published any novels (although he had published some plays and stories). Again like "Backwards to Britain", the editor Hetzel rejected it, calling it lackluster and lifeless, so Verne set it aside and forgot about it, until it was rediscovered and published in 1994, close to a century after the author's death. Therefore, it's not part of the Extraordinary Voyages, and it lacks the editing and polishing that a novel would normally go through before publication.

While "Backwards to Britain" was a travelogue, "Paris in the Twentieth Century" is science fiction. It tells the story of a young man called Michel, who is finishing his studies in the year 1960, in a futuristic version of Paris (well, futuristic since the novel was written a century before that date). Being an orphan, he is poor and depends on the charity of unsympathetic relatives. Additionally, he possesses an artistic temperament, at a time when art is despised as unproductive, and only numbers, technology, commerce and profit are appreciated.

The premise reminded me of Verne's short story "In the Twenty-ninth Century: A Day in the Life of an American Journalist in 2889", included in the collection "Yesterday and Tomorrow". That short story showed us a day in the life of a far-future newspaper magnate. It was short on plot, and mostly a pretext to show us some technological and scientific wonders. In the case of "Paris in the Twentieth Century", the situation is somewhat similar: there is not much plot, and Verne's objective is showing us a possible future society. We see some important technological advances, but the emphasis in this case is sociological. Basically this 20th century society has completely abandoned the arts and humanities in favor of productivity.

This disregard about the arts goes to extremes that make this a dystopia. Michel wins a prize for Latin poetry, but he is mocked and jeered at when he receives the award. Then he starts working in a bank, doing a job he hates. He meets some like-minded people, but ultimately this is a story of alienation and despair.

The conventional wisdom is that, as a young writer, Verne was optimistic about technological progress, and during the last part of his life he became more cautious and disillusioned. However, the fact that Verne wrote this at the very beginning of his career as a novelist goes to show the limitations of that conventional wisdom. This novel shows that a certain weariness about technological progress was already there. Perhaps the reason we do not see more of it in his works at this point is the influence of his editor, Hetzel, and, in general, commercial pressures.

So how good is this story? I found it interesting, at least most of it, but at the same time I can understand why Hetzel rejected it. It is very short for a novel (the only other Verne novel that can be compared in terms of length is "A Floating City"). However, the lack of a clear plot made me feel that it would have worked better as a novelette. There are some long dialogues about literature and the arts that may be a bit pretentious, and descriptions of the future Paris that went on for too long.

I liked reading it, and seeing Verne's ideas about the future, but it is not a thrilling story. A lot of his cultural concerns still seem relevant today. I was amused by the situation of the dramatic arts, where there was a public institute devoted to remaking and adapting classic works, while sucking all the individuality out of them... not that different from modern Hollywood, maybe? Some of the technology he describes is not that different from what was really available in 1960. It's not where I would advice you to start if you are new to Verne, however.
 
Last edited:
And, with this, I finish my Verne reading project. There are a few uncollected short stories and fragments I haven't read, but I don't see a need to be (even more) exhaustive. Greetings to those of you who followed my posts.

This project was a lot of fun for me, more than I had initially expected. It's time for me to read other things, but I'm going to miss my regular Verne readings. I almost feel like opening Five Weeks in a Balloon right away and fly over unexplored Africa! :)
 
farseer2 said:
Interesting. I knew Verne got more pessimistic about technology later on, but I did not know that the Franco-Prussian war had influenced his views about nations. I certainly remember that scene with Paganel and the Maori boy. Even before that war, however, he tended to have many English characters (although I guess that Captain Grant does not count, since the characters are Scottish and don't have such a favorable opinion of England). But he had English heroes in Five Weeks in a Balloon, Captain Hatteras... I had always believed that Verne admired Britain, even if he occasionally criticized things they did.

Regarding Michel Strogoff, maybe the reason the book was banned was that the hero worked for the czarists? After all, those were the enemies of the communist revolution, even though that was many years after the book. In any case, it was one of my favorite Verne novels among the ones I read as a kid.
Click to expand...

There is a film adaptation of Michal Strogoff made in the 1956 with Curt Jurgens .
 
Last edited:
farseer2 said:
And, with this, I finish my Verne reading project. There are a few uncollected short stories and fragments I haven't read, but I don't see a need to be (even more) exhaustive. Greetings to those of you who followed my posts.

This project was a lot of fun for me, more than I had initially expected. It's time for me to read other things, but I'm going to miss my regular Verne readings. I almost feel like opening Five Weeks in a Balloon right away and fly over unexplored Africa! :)
Click to expand...

I had no idea of the scale of Verne's literary output, It's truly staggering . An excellent thread. :cool:

One book I did run across piqued my curiosity was The Castle in Transylvania . Its on my to read list , The edition I have indicated that this was first English translation of that book in 100 years .
 
Cicero said:
I had no idea of the scale of Verne's literary output, It's truly staggering . An excellent thread. :cool:

One book I did run across piqued my curiosity was The Castle in Transylvania . Its on my to read list , The edition I have indicated that this was first English translation of that book in 100 years .
Click to expand...

I'm glad you enjoyed the thread! Yes, Verne was prolific, even if his really famous novels that have become part of pop culture are only a handful out of the many he wrote. The less known ones are not bad by any means, though.

Reading in English, it's usually a good choice to choose a modern translation when you can. The Carpathian Castle, or The Castle in Transylvania, as it's been called in the modern translation, is an example of Verne trying something a bit different, in this case a Gothic novel, although still very much Vernian. It was published before Dracula, to put it in context. It's a quite short novel, and it wasn't necessarily one of my favorites (I really like his exploration/adventure novels, not that my taste must coincide with yours), but it was enjoyable to read. Verne's style is easy to read and enjoy. I hope you like it when you read it.
 
Last edited:
Strangely it was a Scottish woman rather than Verne's novel that caused Stoker to relocate Dracula from Austria to Transylvania.

From the appendix to "Goths and Rooks" (which has Vampires).
Dracula and the Droch-fhuil
Bram Stoker was from Dublin, but he didn’t know Irish nor do his notes mention the old Irish Vampire-like stories of the droch-fhuil and leannán sí. His notes show that the name Dracula was based on an East European word meaning devil. The similarity of the Irish name for Vampire like creatures and aspects of the Irish legends to Bram Stoker’s story are coincidental. Transylvania is a real place; I’ve even met someone from there. It’s in Romania and not far from Hungary; the historic Transylvania extended to the current Romanian-Hungarian border. In medieval times the Hungarians called the area Erdő-elve and the Germans called it überwald, hence the name used for the Vampire and Werewolf nation in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. Emily Gerard was born near Jedburgh in 1849 and her fascination with vampires began after moving to Transylvania in the 1880s. Bram Stoker read one of her articles. At one stage Dracula’s castle was to have been in Austria. He wrote most of the story while in Scotland.

According to the Scottish folklorist Donald Alexander Mackenzie, the baobhan sìde – or sith, which is sidhe in Irish – usually appears as a beautiful young woman wearing a long green dress that conceals the deer hooves she has instead of feet. Like other vampires she drinks the blood of human victims and will vanish with the rising sun. She may also take the form of a hooded crow or raven, otherwise the baobhan sìde seem similar to the Irish leannán sí – sí is a variant spelling of sidhe also pronounced shee today. The Lamia is a vampire like creature with bird’s feet dating back to Sumer. The Sidhe are called Elves in the North of England and Scottish Borders, see the tale of Thomas the Rhymer.

The droch-fhuil (and maybe the leannán sí and baobhan sith) and lamia legends predate Vampyre by John Polidori (1819), Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1872 the first female vampire), Lilith by George MacDonald (1895, arguably the second Gothic female vampire), Dracula’s Guest by Bram Stoker (1897, a lost chapter cut from Bram Stoker’s Dracula novel), and Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897). Urban Gothic Vampire stories from the 1990s onwards are quite different.
Click to expand...

There are other Victorian vampire stories.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Sponsors


We try to keep the forum as free of ads as possible, please consider supporting SFFWorld on Patreon


Your ad here.
Back
Top