In nineteenth-century Italy, young Orfeo Ricari teeters on the brink of adulthood. His new tutor instructs him in literature and poetry during the day and guides him in the world of sensual pleasure at night. But a journey to Paris will teach young Orfeo much more. For in Paris he will become a vampire. Told in his own words, this is the story of the life, death, rebirth and education of a vampire. No one else could properly describe the shadowy existence, the endless hunger, the heightened senses or the amazing power of the undead. No one else could recount the passing of the years and the slow realization of what it means to grasp immortality, to live on innocent blood, to be a Fiend.