Studies of Death

by Count Stenbock, S.E. Stenbock (AKA), Stanislaus Eric Stenbock (AKA)

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.

Studies of Death 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.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Classics, Weird Fiction, Death, Speculative Fiction

182 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1894

About the author

Count 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

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eric Stanislaus Count Stenbock is a fascinating--albeit minor--figure of the fin de siecle. Pity he didn't write better books.

Stenbock, the son of an Estonian count and a Manchester textile heiress, was fascinated by the Pre-Raphaelites (particularly the notorious gay icon and illustrator, Simeon Solomon), became addicted to opium and alcohol, and--perhaps inevitably--converted to Roman Catholicism. (In later days, however, he was said to burn incense before images of the Buddha and Percy Bysshe Shelley.)

He dressed and behaved eccentrically: he wore a bright green suit with an orange shirt, kept snakes,lizards, salamanders and toads in his peacock-blue bedroom, and maintained a garden "zoo" featuring a reindeer, a fox, and a bear. When he traveled, he brought with him not only a dog and a monkey, but also a life-sized doll which he treated as a son and habitually referred to as "le Petite Comte." (Stenbock's family believed he had given an unscrupulous Jesuit a great deal of money to "educate" this doll.) He loathed his stepfather, Francis Mowatt (Permanent Secretary of the Treasury) and died when--at the age of thirty-five--he drunkenly brandished a poker at Mowatt, lost his balance, fell into the fireplace, and hit his head on the grate.

The seven stories in the brief collection Studies in Death reflect Stenbock's unique personality, but are disappointing in construction and undistinguished in style. Most feature an attractive male youth with dark eyes and curved lips who resembles some particular (usually Renaissance) painting and dies beautifully and tragically at story's end. The most successful of these is "The True Story of a Vampire," but the most interesting are "The Egg and the Albatross" (about a mysterious girl who collects bird's eggs) and "The Worm of Luck" (about a handsome half-gypsy fiddler who achieves fame--and death, of course--when he consumes the green caterpillar of the title).

These stories are nothing to write home about, really, but I recommend them to those of you who like the decadents.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

excellent and ahhhhh. Thanks, Snuggly, for publishing this one!

I'm not home at the moment (and won't be for a couple of days) but I'll pick up this post again over the weekend if I can.

[Jim Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

The final three of the book are the finest. I was pleased to reacquaint myself with the classic and oft-anthologised melancholic gothic horror 'True Story of a Vampire', easily Stenbock's most famous tale, but the more unusual fantasies 'Egg of the Albatross' and 'Worm of Luck' impressed me even more, standing out as quite wonderfully bizarre, absurd, grotesque, poetic and moving.

[Patrick.G.P · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a deep melancholy over the tales of Count Eric Stenbock, his characters walk towards their doom and meet it in tragic, unexpected circumstances. These tales were published under the heading, Romantic Tales, and this is very befitting for the tales in this collection, as they deal with passion and romance in different ways. Stenbock’s prose is vivid, yet simple and doesn’t contain as much lush descriptive prose as I would have expected from this period.

His tales were not at all what I expected after reading about his outré life and the highly sensationalized stories of Stenbock himself. The tales are delicate, sad and beautiful, and the climax of the stories are liable to haunt me for a long time.

[Rebecca Alcazaze · Rating 3 out of 5]

A funny little collection of very short stories.

While there may not be much meat on the bones of some of these tales, they do evoke the aesthetic milieu of the yellow 90s. Fin-de-siecle tendencies towards themes of mortality and the uncanny flourish here, and many of the stories end in peculiar and abrupt death.

[Karl]

This hardcover is limited to 70 copies.

[Dries · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was promised "some of the most macabre horror stories of the decadent period", but half of these read like semi-parodic fairy tales. Don't get me wrong: these are (for the most part) compelling and competently written stories, but I can't help but feel a little underwhelmed by many of them. Stenbock is without doubt a fascinating figure, but reading his short stories, I get the vague impression that he was one of those authors who felt an overwhelming desire to write, but didn't quite know what to write about. His tales definitely show traces of originality, but Stenbock doesn't seem able to develop them into anything more than a couple of interesting ideas or storylines. At other times, he is playing around with some classic Romantic or Gothic tropes that he himself doesn't seem to know what to do with: his "True Story of a Vampire" for instance seems more than a little indebted to Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla" (right down to the main character's name being Carmela), but can't seem to figure out whether it wants to be a tribute, a full-on parody, or something else altogether. I'm going to end my review here, because the longer I go on, the more I'm beginning to think that even 3 stars might be a bit overgenerous, but I want to conclude by saying that this collection is still worth checking out, even if for no other reason than pure novelty or its intriguing author.

[Bruce Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars for absurdity, five stars for hyperbolic dramatics, five stars for the author being a member of

The Idiot Club of London, who were dedicated to the “Suppression of Dignity and Wisdom”...

quoted from David Tibet's introduction to an anthology of Stenbock's writings, Of Kings and Things .
In the same introduction, Tibet quotes W.B. Yeats who called Count Stenbock a

“scholar, connoisseur, drunkard, poet, pervert, most charming of men”.

Confused? Well, if you're not, try reading Studies of Death..This is a uniquely weird collection of stories, all circling around death. As a teaser, here is one extended quotation from a much older edition, perversely subtitled Romantic Tales:

For the legend goes about Paganini, the strings of a violin were made of the entrails of a person, which necessitated their murder; but here it would appear from the rest of the letter it did not do so, and was a freewill offering.]—Andrea conceived the fantastic idea of cutting off part of his own skin and having it tanned unbeknown to our father, telling him he had got it from the Clinic, because he had heard human leather was the best. Eric, Count Stenbock, Studies Of Death, (London: David Nutt in the Strand, 1894), 81

[David Karlsson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I vissa fall överträffar verkligheten dikten, och greve Eric Stenbock tycks vara ett sånt. Det lilla som är känt om hans korta liv i slutet av 1800-talet är i sig stoff för en roman: en förmögen men dekadent greve som missbrukade alkohol och opium, kunde ha en orm runt halsen vid frukostbordet och hade ett mindre privat zoo, klädde sig extravagant, var homosexuell och i slutet av sitt korta liv hade en stor trädocka som han kallade "den lille greven" och hävdade var hans son.

Vad som är myt och vad som är sanning tycks vara svårt att veta, men klart är i alla fall att han under sitt liv publicerade tre kortare diktsamlingar samt en novellsamling som nu för första gången finns på svenska tack vara Hastur förlag.

Någon lysande författare var den gode greven kanske inte, det är ibland lite styltigt och man kan luras att tro att det är översättningen som brister men konsulterar man det engelska originalet ser man att så inte är fallet. Men det finns ändå charm i berättelserna som ofta bygger på en ganska bra premiss, vare sig det handlar om vampyrer, varulvar, förgänglig skönhet, dödlig svartsjuka eller instrument byggda med mänskliga beståndsdelar. Det handlar alltså om ganska typisk romantisk skräck från 1800-talet som får en extra krydda just på grund av myten om dess författare.

En extra eloge ska förlaget ha för valet att återanvända det fantastiska originalomslaget av Stenbock själv (fladdermöss, ugglor, orm - what's not to like?) samt för ett välskrivet förord.

[Romuald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Denna lilla bok kommer från Hastur förlag som ger ut rätt mycket av ”fin de siècle”-litteratur (slutet av 1800-talet) med fokus på klassisk skräck, fantasy och sf-litteratur i svensk översättning. Redan i rätt omfattande förord varnas läsare om att Stenbock var ingen lysande författare, så förväntningar är ganska låga (typ, på noll) när man börjar läsa själva novellsamlingen - den enda som Greve Eric Stenbock har skrivit då hans primär fokus var poesi. Och, självklart, när man förväntar sig väldigt lite är det lättare att bli positivt överraskad. Stenbocks dekadenta prosa är enkel, med djup och obskyr melankoli samt något makabra och ej särskilt realistiska handlingar, dialoger och karaktärer. Detta kan absolut inte klassas som höglitterär läsning, men det är ändå ett ganska fascinerande exempel på dekadent litteratur av s.k. ”The Yellow Nineties” perioden (1890-talet). Boken kan sammanfattas på enklare svenska som en bisarr och samtidigt lite charmig klassisk romantik med en hel del av övernaturliga element. Så vitt jag vet så skulle ”Studies of Death” för länge sedan glömts bort och skulle aldrig se svenska översättningen om inte för det lilla faktum att Greve Stenbock var en rätt intressant karaktär i sig: "scholar, connoisseur, drunkard, poet, pervert, most charming of men”, som W.B. Yeats har beskrivit honom.

P.S. Omslaget är ritad av själva författaren.

[Vultural · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stenbock, Count Eric - Studies Of Death

Slim volume on the death of love, of affection, of beauty.
In some tales, physical mortality leads to unexpected consequences.
Other times, the abandonment of a skill or object reveals the frailty of the soul.
Stenbock's style is elegant and restrained, exteriors are vivid, characters well shaded.
"The Egg Of The Albatross" is a real highlight.

I must confess, every time I see the name ‘Count Stenbock’ I think, “What a marvelous name for a Bond villain.”

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An odd (but oddly charming) collection of tales by a forgotten Decadent-era writer. None of these stories are particularly outstanding, but each one has its own quality of fairy-tale dreaminess. I would not describe these tales as macabre (as the back cover does) but rather melancholic, since many of the characters face down a sad but inescapable fate, sometimes a product of their own misguided actions, and sometimes the consequence of a world that crushes those who are outside of normal societal boundaries. Overall, an interesting but not distinguished read.

[Farbror the Guru · Rating 3 out of 5]

Det sägs att Greve Stenbock är spännande som ett original men ointressant som författare. Det lägger ett kräset ljus över hans texter. Av det lilla jag läst av författaren som poet så är det förmodligen sant men några av hans noveller är inte alls dumma.

De noveller som handlar om aristokrater med dragning åt det dekadenta håller god till hygglig klass men de noveller som flörtar med det övernaturliga är i mitt tycke inte värst mycket bättre än hans poesi.

Stark trea.

[EmBe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Die Stories haben alle eine Art dekadenten Touch. Zwischen mordibe und melancholisch. Eine Vampirgeschichte ist darunter. Aber auch eine Geschichte, die Freiburg im Breisgau als Handlungsort hat. Diese beiden Erzählungen haben mir mehr als die anderen zugesagt. An sonsten würde ich nur 2,5 Punkte vergeben.

[io · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick and enjoyable read, melancholy and macabre. I wish these stories had been a bit more fleshed out.

[Addie Lin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kinda reminiscent of The King in Yellow and other novels on decadent and gothic horror literature. It's a nice and simple read.

[Julian · Rating 5 out of 5]

if studies of death by eric stanislaus stenbock has no fans then i am dead