Meet the Vampire Soul: the savage OTTYSOR. "They are veritable shades," says Doctor Bonhomet. "Not one of them has ever been captured, and in spite of the many volleys discharged at them, no one has ever seen them fall or flee. No one knows what they do with their dead, if they do die..." Jean-Marie-Mathias-Philippe-Auguste, Comte de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam (1838-1889), pioneer of the Symbolist Movement, is known for his proto-science fiction works Axel (1885) and L'Eve Future (1886) and his "Cruel Tales" collected in The Scaffold. He also chronicled the colorful adventures of Doctor Bonhomet collected in The Vampire Soul. Poet Paul Verlaine called Villiers' works a "genial melange of irony, metaphysics and terror" and translator Brian Stableford dubs it "a bizarre literary landmark." Stableford has published more than fifty novels and two hundred short stories. The Vampire Soul, written in 1867 - thirty years before Bram Stoker's Dracula - is one of the many classic vampire stories available from Black Coat Press. This book is the first English-language edition, and includes an authoritative introduction and historical notes.