On a related note, do you incorporate the drafted inability to appear accurately in paintings, or appearing corpse-like or blackened in photos?

I absolutely hold that preference for blood varies depending on both the vampire and the victim, but evidence for vampire taste preferences is scant in the literature; not only is the actual physical act of blood drinking seldom given much importance in these stories, but a surprising number of vampires don't seem to need actual blood at all. (This makes a certain amount of sense: blood is just a stand-in for life force, and different vampires have other ways of getting at it.)

From a reviewer of this who you will agree with: Included is Lord Byron’s “Fragment of the Novel,” which is haunting and evocative. (You may have heard that Byron is a pretty good writer.) “Fragment” was only released to demonstrate that Byron had not written John William Polidori’s “The Vampyre,” which is not nearly so haunting nor evocative. Its final line, “Lord Ruthven had disappeared, and Aubrey’s sister had glutted the thirst of a Vampyre!” makes this 21st century reviewer wonder how anyone could have thought this Byron’s work.

Huh. It's definitely more readable; Byron can actually make the interminable-sentences-strung-together-by-semicolons work, whereas Polidori just seems to be rationing periods. The prose is more evocative, mostly because it's actually comprehensible.

In terms of plot I think it's not really fair to compare the two; the unfinished nature of this one gives it an advantage, I think, in that your imagination is allowed to run wild with the directions it could take. I know mine certainly is.

My knee-jerk impression is that this one feels gayer, though that might be partially due to the first-person POV. I want to read Darvell's line with the stork and the snake as a threat directed at the POV character, rather than some conveniently appearing sister or girlfriend of his, but I have no way to prove the story would've gone in that direction. I'm intrigued by the amount of ritual surrounding Darvell's death and (presumed) resurrection; it makes me wonder what the literary vampire would look like in a universe where a finished version of this took off, rather than Polidori's slop.

The 21st century reviewer has left out the hackiest part of Polidori's ending: the formatting. In the Project Gutenberg edition of The Vampyre, the final word "Vampyre" appears in all caps.

Whitman Illuminated: Song of Myself

Illustrator, Allen Crawford, has produced this fabulous hand lettered version of Walt Whitman’s iconic poem. The entire 256-page book has been drawn by entirely by hand with each page focussing on a particular verse.