Demons on the Brain

"What kind of person would be the best for the job of vampire killer?" These are the opening words to the chapter ergo essay on Seán Manchester in Ramsey Campbell, Probably. "The narrator reveals more about himself than vampirism," says Campbell. "This at least it has in common with The Highgate Vampire, Sean (now Seán) Manchester's account of his experiences with vampirism."

Seán Manchester, of course, was always Seán Manchester, but certain formats in the past were not always able to facilitate the fada accent over the "a" without which the forename sounds phonetically the same as the word "seen." Such minutiae appears to be of importance to Campbell, ie that most publishers printed the author's name without a fada over the second vowel in his Christian name. Thus nit-picking plagues Campbell's commentary on Seán Manchester. It is really quite tedious.

What is apparent from the outset is exactly how much of Seán Manchester's The Highgate Vampire Campbell is prepared to quote at length. He literally retells the entire book, annotating it with churlish remarks of his own, and he gets very personal in the process; mentioning Seán Manchester's nanny, and, more unpleasantly, his wife about whom he has nothing particularly nice to say. You would have thought Campbell would have learned his lesson after having defamed the lady in an earlier publication in the previous century, and being obliged to apologise in writing at the behest of his publisher. Yet he ploughs on with one error after another, even attributing the wrong university degree to her. He half-remembers, half-forgets things; relying on sources who know even less than him. 

"Our man is unable to prevent Sarah from undergoing an impregnation by a demon," Campbell claims rather alarmingly. All complete twaddle and utter poppycock, of course. This is something more redolent of one of Campbell's own horror fiction paperbacks. It was not written by Seán Manchester. 

At this point in Campbell's narrative he feebly explains: "In the original version of this review my mind must have been clouded by some demonic influence, causing me to misread Manchester's hypnotic prose." Campbell is now referring to the libellous allegation he made in Shock Xpress in 1991. He remains unrepentant, and probably resentful of having been forced to apologise all those years ago. 

Here the narrator reveals more about himself than "some demonic influence." And Ramsey Campbell's essay tells us far more about Ramsey Campbell than it does about Seán Manchester.

Bishop Seán Manchester with his wife Sarah.