The House of the Vampire by George Sylvester Viereck

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

Blurb

One of the first psychic vampire novels of its time - where the vampire feeds off of more than just blood - The House of the Vampire is an early classic in its genre. Republished in this new edition, this Victorian novel operates in the continuum of life and death. What has been can be again, though often terribly transformed. Energetically inventive and infused with a relish for the supernatural, especially the trappings of the dark, The House of the Vampire delivers a horror which we know does not - but none the less conceivably might - exist and threaten ourselves. Blurring the lines between fact and fiction, The House of the Vampire is considered a classic among Victorian Gothic stories.



"He felt the presence of the hand of Reginald Clarke - unmistakably - groping in his brain as if searching for something that had still escaped him. He tried to move, to cry out, but his limbs were paralysed. When, by a superhuman effort, he at last succeeded in shaking off the numbness that held him enchained, he awoke just in time to see a figure, that of a man, disappearing in the wall that separated Reginald's apartments from his room...."



George Sylvester Viereck (1884 - 1962), remembered today chiefly for his contributions to fantasy literature, was born in Germany and emigrated to the United States with his family at age 11. He was editor of the magazine The Fatherland, and author of Confessions of a Barbarian and Glimpses of the Great. (less)

First published in 1907.

This was written in the USA, but I put it in continental as the author seemed rooted in German culture and spent his formative years in Germany. He became very active as a German propagandist later too, and turned into a Nazi sympathiser.

It is short, the edition I have on my ebook site is 120 pages long.

It is available here, but I'm sure their are other better editions available for free online:

en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_House_of_the_Vampire

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

The introduction says: 

Viereck also published one of the first known gay vampire novels The
House of the Vampire (1907). Not only is this one of the first known gay vampire
stories, but it is also one of the first psychic vampire stories — where a vampire
feeds off of more than just blood.

But the reviews on goodreads say it is barely noticeable, though the author seems to have been influenced by Oscar Wilde.

The introduction also says:

In the 1920s, Nikola Tesla became a close friend of Viereck. According to Tesla, Viereck
was the greatest contemporary American poet. Tesla occasionally attended dinner
parties held by Viereck and his wife, and wrote a poem which he dedicated to his
friend Viereck. It was called "Fragments of Olympian Gossip" in which Tesla
ridiculed the scientific establishment of the day.

[Dr Strange]

Viereck was the editor of two pro-German magazines published in America around the time of World War I (The Fatherland and The International) - both of which regularly carried essays, stories, plays, and poems by Aleister Crowley. Crowley was also a "contributing editor" for The International when he was living in New York. Several of Crowley's Simon Iff stories first appeared in The International.

[helrunar]

Later provided the basis for the notorious pulp novel Gay Nazi Vampire from Hell, a work that is quite difficult to track down.

H.