BLOODY COUNTESS (Solar Blood History)

Descended from an aristocratic European family, Erzsebet Bathory bore the psychotic aberrations of centuries of intermarriage. From adolescence on, she indulged in sadistic lesbian fantasies, and by middle age, had regressed to a mirror-fixated state of pathological necro-sadism involving witchcraft, torture, blood-drinking, and more. Her 16th century reign of cruelty remains unsurpassed in the annals of mass murder, with the Countess? depredations on the virgin girls of the Carpathians leading to some 650 deaths id her many castles equipped with torture chambers. This is a true, disturbing case history of a female psychopath, a chillingly lyrical account beautifully translated by Alexander Trocchi, evoking the decadent melancholy of doomed, delinquent aristocracy in a dark age of superstition. The book contains an appendix featuring actual transcripts from Bathory’s trial and has inspired many horror movies, such as Hammer’s Countess Dracula.

De Sade did not know of Erzs‚bet Bathory’s existence, but doubtless her atrocities would have roused his most vicious excitement. -- Georges Bataille, The Tears Of Eros