Ira Levin’s first, absolutely utterly fantastic book A Kiss Before Dying is told from the villian’s viewpoint in parts 1 & 3. Part 2 has the biggest plot shocker in a book ever.
The Somnambulist, by Johnathan Barnes is written from the protagonist’s perspective but narrated by the villain.
I was thinking about citing that one, but isn’t the perspective from Wormwood’s uncle Screwtape, rather than Wormwood himself? I suppose they are both villains, but I thought that it wouldn’t count since it’s not written in the perspective of the primary villain. Though I could see an argument that Screwtape is the true villain, or at least as true of one as Wormwood.
First, thank you for the encapsulated description. I was about to add more in an edit. But I was stopped by technical problems even though I did not miss the time window.
You are right that the converting Christian victim is attacked directly by Wormwood. But he doesn’t do a very good job, since early in the book the conversion (Horrors!) does occur. And then Screwtape, after thoroughly berating him for allowing such to occur, tell him to do the next best thing and get his “patient” to fall away. I’m getting more and more vague in my memory, but ISTR that Wormwood ultimately fails, earning a drastic punishment. (There is a point wherein Screwtape is temporarily “screwed” with a punishment, a negative transformation, for a careless remark, but generally he is a successful “senior demon” and doesn’t earn a permanent scarring. The book ends with a speech by Screwtape to fellow demons wherein he bemoans the lack of quality of people pouring into hell in the WWII days.)
My conclusion: While they are both villainous, and the book only show Screwtape’s side of the correspondence, it counts as an example of what the OP asked. From the one side of the conversation we see that Wormwood is rather hapless and constantly needs advice from his uncle. (At one very early point, prior to the conversion, he is even harshly chastened that his job is to CONFUSE his patient’s thinking, not to EDUCATE him.) With the constant steering of the far more competent “Uncle” Screwtape, the latter is not only one of the villains, but arguably the primary one.
Yes, it’s fairly clearly intimated that this punishment will to be that Screwtape himself will, in demonic terms, kill and eat him (consume him and subject him to an eternity of agony). That rather makes Screwtape himself all the more villainly, I think.
Well, there’s The Turner Diaries, though the main character (and the author) thought he was a hero.
The poster child for this genre would be Kind Hearts and Coronets. A once famous film, it was originally a novel by Roy Horniman — entitled Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal published in 1907.
It is written upon waiting judicial swinging for the sequential murders of heirs to a dukedom previous to the narrator.
However, some other Ealing Comedies — quite tedious — are based on the concept of looking at events from the criminals’ point of view; and I recall a number of Edwardian comic short stories may have been based on either that or similarly the view of a fussy dummkopf, who doesn’t realise the joke’s on him.
I’m thinking Richard Marsh (** The Beetle** ), Arthur Morrison and H. G. Wells for some reason.
More recently I would argue that the narrators of some works by one of my favourite authors, the late, great George V. Higgins are somewhat unreliable and display criminal tendencies. And before him, some of the heroes and heroines of the grifting world — almost the floating world — written by Jim Thompson, were not very nice people. Savage Night is written by a hitman.
And whilst Charlie Mortdecai is only partially a villain — since he keeps coming up against persons even worse than himself — the works of the most excellent Kyril Bonfiglioli qualify.
Barry Lyndon is told from the point of view of a right bastard, though he doesn’t think he is. Lyndon thinks he’s a descendant of Irish kings who’s entitled to whatever he wants from the lesser beings around him.
If you want villain perspective stories, Poe is definitely the place to look. I think that The Tell-Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, and The Black Cat are some of the best examples of stories truly written from the villains’ perspective. This type of narrator is rare, because it’s not the most pleasant thing to read - by the end of all three stories, you feel a bit sick. With most works mentioned in this thread, the characters are anti-heroes - sure, they’re ethically questionable, but at least you’re able to feel some level of sympathy for them. What Poe did was put you into the mind of a twisted person who tries to hide their true nature the whole story with flimsy excuses for their actions before finishing it off with them committing some horrible murder that leaves you almost feeling betrayed.
The Hound of the d’Urbervilles, by Kim Newman, is narrated by Col. Sebastian Moran and is about his adventures with Professor Moriarty. It’s brilliant.
And since we’re including short stories, “Lamb to the Slaughter”, by Roald Dahl,
one of the “Nightmare” stories by Fredric Brown, in which the main character murders his wife, only to be caught immediately and “The Lady and the Tiger” by Jack Moffitt, which is based on the more famous “The Lady, Or the Tiger” by Frank Stockton, in which the main character opens the door with the tiger behind it–following the hint of the princess, and then, to save himself, also opens the door with the lady behind it. He hides himself behind the open doors, and the tiger kills the lady. He turns out to be the other man crucified along with Christ, the one who refuses to ask for forgiveness.
This novel has also been recently adapted as a Broadway musical called A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. I happened to catch it while in New York over the holidays and found it very entertaining.
I think The Talented Mr Ripley deserves mention.