Books - Tales of the Dead

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	Books - Tales of the Dead

Tales of the Dead was an English language collection of horror fiction, published in 1813 by the publishing house White, Cochrane and Co.

Origin

The collection had its origin in Gespensterbuch, a five-volume anthology of German language ghost stories. The original anthology was published in Leipzig between 1811 and 1815. The stories were compiled by Friedrich August Schulze (1770 - 1849), under the pen name Friedrich Laun, and Johann August Apel (17 September, 1771 - 9 August, 1816).

A selection of short stories from the first two volumes received a French language translation by Jean Baptiste Benoit Eyries (1767 - 1846) and were published in Paris during 1812. The French title was Fantasmagoriana, ou Recueil d'Histoires d'Apparitions de Spectres, Revenans, Fantomes, etc.; traduit de l'allemand, par un Amateur.

Five stories from the Fantasmagoriana were then translated to English by Mrs Sarah Elizabeth Brown Utterson (1782? - 1851). Utterson also added a story of her own. The six tales formed the 1813 Tales of the Dead.

Fantasmagoriana has a significant place in the history of English literature. In the summer of 1816 Lord Byron and John William Polidori were staying at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva and were visited by Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Claire Clairmont. Kept indoors by the "incessant rain" of that "wet, ungenial summer", over three days in June the five turned to reading fantastical stories, including Fantasmagoriana (in the French edition), and then devising their own tales. Mary Shelley produced what would become Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus
and Polidori was inspired by a fragmentary story of Byron's to produce The Vampyre
, the progenitor of the romantic vampire genre. Some parts of Frankenstein are surprisingly similar to those found in Fantasmagoriana and suggest a direct influence upon Mary Shelley's writing.

Later publications

Both Fantasmagoriana and Tales of the Dead did not receive second editions during the remainder of the 19th century. Thus they were long unavailable for most of the 20th century.

In 1992, the Gothic Society of London published a new edition, introduced and slightly revised by Dr. Terry Hale (1957 - ). A second edition was published in 1994. This edition was available only by mail.

The 1990s version received a Greek language translation by Nikos Stampakis (Νίκος Σταμπάκης). The translation was published as Istories ton Nekron (Ιστορίες των Nεκρών) by publishing house Archetypo-Metaekdotiki (Greek: Archetype - Meta-publishing) in Thessaloniki during November, 2003. The Greek edition claims to be the first available in bookstores since the 1810s.

In 2005, the first full English translation of Fantasmagoriana was published by Fantasmagoriana Press. This edition included three additional tales that Mrs Utterson had omitted from her translation. The book also provided an academic essay by A.J.Day with possible evidence for Mary Shelley's visit to Burg Frankenstein in Germany, prior to the writing of her novel.

The stories

The titles are taken from the Greek translation and may not be identical to the available English ones.

The Family Portraits (Τα Οικογενειακά Πορτραίτα).
The Fatal Hour (Η Μοιραία Ώρα).
The Death's Head (Η Νεκροκεφαλή).
The Bride of Death (Η Νύφη του Θανάτου).
The Storm (Η Καταιγίδα).
The Spectre-Barber (Ο Κουρέας-Φάντασμα).

The Family Portraits

Day attributes the story to Johann August Apel.

Introduction

The tale starts briefly after sunset in a forest road of the former Holy Roman Empire. A lonely stagecoach makes its way through the forest. The coachman complains of the disrepair of the old road while his passenger is lost in contemplation. The narrator introduces the passenger as Ferdinand Meltheim, last of the "ancient" Meltheim family. Ferdinand was reportedly a typical youthful member of the aristocracy, having visited several universities and traveled across Europe. His father however had died during his absence. Ferdinand was returning to his homeland in order to receive his paternal inheritance.

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