Nosferatu: Vampyre

Nosferatu means "the undead". It was the name given to Count Dracula by F. W. Murnau in his revolutionary silent film "Nosferatu" (1922), and the first movie version of Bram Stoker's classic novel, "Dracula" (1897). And it is the name given to the lonely vampyre with the restless nighttime thirst in Werner Herzog's chilling film "Nosferatu The Vampire" (1979), here captured unforgettably by outstanding novelist, Paul Monette. The story begins when Jonathan Harker, a blissfully married young real estate agent, is sent abroad to close a deal with a mysterious count. One storm-tossed night, the new landowner arrives on a ship with twelve coffins of dirt and the dead captain lashed to the wheel. Soon the entire town is gripped by plague and Dracula begins to insinuate himself into the consciousness of Lucy, Jonathan's beautiful wife. She is the alluring and courageous woman who realizes, in mounting terror, that the only way to defeat a vampyre is to give of herself, totally, from darkness to dawn. Nosferatu, the pale, wraithlike figure with the seeking mouth, is both seducer and seduced in the moving and terrifying climax to the story. Each night he returns to the living. Each morning he returns to the grave. But this time, he finds the one bed he cannot leave before the first light of dawn! A great collectible novel.