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Dödens andedräkt
Greve Stanislaus Eric Stenbock (1860-1895), parfymerad och perverterad poet, författare, dandy, drinkare och opiummissbrukare, är den engelska fin de siècle-litteraturens kanske mest mytomspunna person. Han var besatt av döden och fagra ynglingar, och är idag mer känd för sitt excentriska leverne i lyx och rus än för sina litterära alster. I "Dödens andedräkt" ingår novellerna "Den sanna berättelsen om en vampyr", "Den andra sidan" och "En nutida Sankt Venantius", samt ett fylligt och initierat efterord om den dekadenta greven.
- GenresHorror
79 pages, Paperback
First published June 15, 2014
5 people want to read
About the author
Count Stenbock
60 books37 followersCount Eric Stanislaus (or Stanislaus Eric) Stenbock was a Baltic German poet and writer of macabre fantastic fiction. He was a symbol of his age, poet, decadent, short story writer, a true member of the aristocracy who mixed with the Socialists and radicals of the late Nineteenth Century. In his time he was known as a 'drunkard, poet, pervert, most charming of men' a description which serves to confuse more than illuminate. Stenbock's life in Brighton, London and Estonia gives us a window on to the complicated worlds of literature, art and fashion which characterised the late Nineteenth Century.
Stenbock was the count of Bogesund and the heir to an estate near Kolga in Estonia. He was the son of Lucy Sophia Frerichs, a Manchester cotton heiress, and Count Erich Stenbock, of a distinguished Baltic German noble family with Swedish roots which rose to prominence in the service of Gustav Vasa. Stenbock's great-grandfather was Baron Friedrich von Stuart (1761–1842) from Courland. Immanuel Kant was great-great-granduncle of count Eric Stenbock.
During his lifetime the eccentric Count Eric Stenbock published a single collection of short stories, Studies of Death. These seven tales, at once feverish, morbid, and touching, are a key work of English decadence and the Yellow Nineties.
W.B. Yeats called Stenbock: "Scholar, connoisseur, drunkard, poet, pervert, most charming of men." Arthur Symons saw him as "bizarre, fantastic, feverish, eccentric, extravagant, morbid and perverse."
In a short life - (he died at 36 in 1895) - he so impressed himself upon his contemporaries that the legends they tell of him in memoirs and anecdotes far outstrip the attention given to his writings.
Studies of Death: Romantic Tales appeared in 1894, ornamented with a striking frontispiece by its author. The seven stories reveal an original imagination and a spry, urbane style quite removed from the melancholy murmurings of the Count's verse.
Towards the end, the Count was mentally as well as physically ill. At Withdeane Hall he terrified the domestic staff with his persecution complex and his delirium tremens. On his travels he had been escorted, and with him went a dog, a monkey and a life-size doll. He was convinced that the doll was his son and referred to it as 'le Petit comte'. Every day it had to be brought to him, and when it was not there he would ask for news of its health.
He was buried at the Brighton Catholic Cemetery. Before burial his heart was extracted and sent to Estonia & placed among the Stenbock monuments in the church at Kusal. It was preserved in some fluid in a glass urn in a cupboard built into the wall of the church. At the time of his death, his uncle and heir, far away in Esbia, saw an apparition of his tear-stained face at his study window.
On the day of his death the Count, drunk and furious, had tried to strike someone with a poker and toppled into a grate. -- R. B. Russell
Stenbock was the count of Bogesund and the heir to an estate near Kolga in Estonia. He was the son of Lucy Sophia Frerichs, a Manchester cotton heiress, and Count Erich Stenbock, of a distinguished Baltic German noble family with Swedish roots which rose to prominence in the service of Gustav Vasa. Stenbock's great-grandfather was Baron Friedrich von Stuart (1761–1842) from Courland. Immanuel Kant was great-great-granduncle of count Eric Stenbock.
During his lifetime the eccentric Count Eric Stenbock published a single collection of short stories, Studies of Death. These seven tales, at once feverish, morbid, and touching, are a key work of English decadence and the Yellow Nineties.
W.B. Yeats called Stenbock: "Scholar, connoisseur, drunkard, poet, pervert, most charming of men." Arthur Symons saw him as "bizarre, fantastic, feverish, eccentric, extravagant, morbid and perverse."
In a short life - (he died at 36 in 1895) - he so impressed himself upon his contemporaries that the legends they tell of him in memoirs and anecdotes far outstrip the attention given to his writings.
Studies of Death: Romantic Tales appeared in 1894, ornamented with a striking frontispiece by its author. The seven stories reveal an original imagination and a spry, urbane style quite removed from the melancholy murmurings of the Count's verse.
Towards the end, the Count was mentally as well as physically ill. At Withdeane Hall he terrified the domestic staff with his persecution complex and his delirium tremens. On his travels he had been escorted, and with him went a dog, a monkey and a life-size doll. He was convinced that the doll was his son and referred to it as 'le Petit comte'. Every day it had to be brought to him, and when it was not there he would ask for news of its health.
He was buried at the Brighton Catholic Cemetery. Before burial his heart was extracted and sent to Estonia & placed among the Stenbock monuments in the church at Kusal. It was preserved in some fluid in a glass urn in a cupboard built into the wall of the church. At the time of his death, his uncle and heir, far away in Esbia, saw an apparition of his tear-stained face at his study window.
On the day of his death the Count, drunk and furious, had tried to strike someone with a poker and toppled into a grate. -- R. B. Russell
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 24, 2018
En intressant lite inblick i en ganska bortglömt persons verk. Greve Stenbock, samtida med Oscar Wilde och, från det lilla som finns bevarat om honom, inte allt för olika Wilde på några fronter, har en fascination för unga pojkar, döden och religion.
Jag har alltid tyckt att det är spännande när jag får läsa mer okända författares verk. Nu är en brittisk greve inte direkt den sortens person som hade svårt att få chansen att uttrycka sina tankar och åsikter i skrift, men det är kul att se vilka personer som trots pengar och inflytande inte blev framgångsrika.
De tre historierna i denna bok är väldigt fokuserade på unga pojkar i fara. Me thinks someone had a creepy kink - inte att Stenbock vara homosexuell utan att pojkarna i berättelserna tydligt är pojkar, alltså barn. Det är i alla fall så jag läste det, men jag kan ju trots allt ha överreagerat. Vissa saker läses ju lite annorlunda i olika tidsåldrar.
Det var intressant att kombinera de korta historierna med den något håliga biografin som de lyckats få ihop om Stenbock. Helt klart läsvärt.
Jag har alltid tyckt att det är spännande när jag får läsa mer okända författares verk. Nu är en brittisk greve inte direkt den sortens person som hade svårt att få chansen att uttrycka sina tankar och åsikter i skrift, men det är kul att se vilka personer som trots pengar och inflytande inte blev framgångsrika.
De tre historierna i denna bok är väldigt fokuserade på unga pojkar i fara. Me thinks someone had a creepy kink - inte att Stenbock vara homosexuell utan att pojkarna i berättelserna tydligt är pojkar, alltså barn. Det är i alla fall så jag läste det, men jag kan ju trots allt ha överreagerat. Vissa saker läses ju lite annorlunda i olika tidsåldrar.
Det var intressant att kombinera de korta historierna med den något håliga biografin som de lyckats få ihop om Stenbock. Helt klart läsvärt.
December 1, 2016
Första novellen var helt i min smak, framför allt var de inledande meningarna fantastiska!
Sedan går det nedåt, den tredje och sista novellen kändes för mig som ett "mja".
Sedan går det nedåt, den tredje och sista novellen kändes för mig som ett "mja".
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews