Seductress Extraordinaire

Terry Castle

  • ‘That Furious Lesbian’: The Story of Mercedes de Acosta by Robert Schanke
    Southern Illinois, 210 pp, £16.95, June 2004, ISBN 0 8093 2579 9
  • Women in Turmoil: Six Plays by Mercedes de Acosta, edited by Robert Schanke
    Southern Illinois, 252 pp, £26.95, June 2003, ISBN 0 8093 2509 8

You know you’re getting old when sleeping with a vampire no longer gives you a sickly thrill. At the age of ten or eleven, having absorbed the requisite number of creaky old Bela Lugosi films, I evolved such a baleful Dracula-fear that I began sleeping every night with one arm slung backwards over my neck. This neurotic and slightly awkward posture – still habitual, I’m embarrassed to say – was meant to be prophylactic: even while snoozing, I figured, I’d be ready to fend off any emissaries from the undead who tried to bite me.

You are not Logged In

  • If you have already registered login here
  • If you are a print subscriber using the site for the first time please register here
  • If you are not yet a subscriber you can subscribe here
  • If you are a member of a subscribing institution or University library please login here
  • If you have an Institutional print subscription and online access is not included, find out about our Institutional online subscriptions

Vol. 26 No. 12 · 24 June 2004 » Terry Castle » Seductress Extraordinaire (print version)
Pages 28-31 | 6004 words