Title: Vampire
Format: Short story
Author: Vladimir Dal
Nationality: Russian
Written: 1848
Published: 1848
Impact: ?
Synopsis: No idea. Once again, searches turn up nothing. I believe it was part of a book he wrote on Russian folk and fairy tales, so perhaps it’s related to one of them, but I can’t say for sure. Just missed out on being the first Russian vampire tale though, pipped by Tolstoy by five years.
Title: The Pale Lady
Format: Novella
Author: Alexandre Dumas
Nationality: French
Written: 1849
Published: 1849
Impact: ?
Synopsis: Set against the background of a war between Poland and Russia, its lead character is Hedwig, a Polish girl who is sent to - wait for it - the Carpathians when her family’s castle falls to the Russians. Attacked by brigands on the way, most of her retinue is wiped out and the brigand leader, one of two brothers, takes her to his castle. Now, it turns out that while the brother, Kotsaki, led the attack it was the other one, Gregoriska who “interrupted it” - I don’t know whether he attacked his brother or not, but Hedwig falls in love with him, though Kotsaki also falls for her and declares she will die if she loves another. As they prepare to elope from the castle, Kotsaki gets word and attacks Gregoriska, who kills him.
But sure death never stops these guys, and right enough Kotsaki is back, in vampire form. Perhaps at odds with other vampire stories, he doesn’t come to suck Hedwig’s blood at midnight, but at the strange time of eight forty-five in the evening. Held by his spell, the girl doesn’t know what’s happening as she’s drained and left looking pale and sick. Someone call Van Helsing! Oh, right. He hasn’t been invented yet. Oh well. Guess it’s up to Gregoriska to save her, and once he realises dear old bro is gone fangside, he gets Hedwig “a twig of box consecrated by the priest and still wet with holy water” which will protect her from Kotsaki.
Time for some brotherly confrontation. Gregoriska uses a sword worn by a Crusader, and so deemed holy and with certain powers, to force his sibling to admit that he had thrown himself on his brother’s sword, so he had not been murdered but had in fact committed suicide. What difference that makes I don’t know, but in a rather funny and at the same time unnecessarily cruel touch Gregoriska makes Kotsaki march several miles back to his grave, where he pins him with the sword, killing him forever. The effort drains his soul though and he collapses beside the corpse of his brother.
A few things crop up here which make it likely Stoker read, or knew of this story. The first, and most glaring one is of course the setting: to my knowledge, and from the research I’ve done, his was the first vampire story set in the Carpathians, though now I see this predated it. Also the use of a sword like a later stake, the sprinkling of holy water and the use of holy relics, as well as the vampire entering a lady’s bedchamber, the sucking of her blood and the resultant paleness of the skin of the victim. Given how famous Dumas was for novels like
The Three Musketeers and
The Count of Monte Cristo, it seems unlikely Stoker would not have heard of this story. I’m sure it came up in his extensive research.
Title: The Vampire and the Devil’s Son
Format: Novel
Author: Pierre Alexis de Ponson du Terrail
Nationality: French
Written: 1852
Published: 1852
Impact: ?
Synopsis: A baron returning from war is captured by the Black Huntsman, whom legend says is the son of Satan himself. He is held prisoner and seduced by a vampire woman, who looks like his dead wife. The novel features the most matter-of-fact attitude I’ve come across from a vampire so far:
"I believe," the dead woman said,
"that there is no need to explain to you by means of a lie how it comes about that, ten years after my death, I have such supple flesh, such rounded arms, and a neck so pink and white. You can see that I am a vampire..." Right you are. Glad we got that sorted then. Could have been
most embarrassing.
Title: The Mysterious Stranger
Format: Short story
Author: Unknown
Nationality: Unknown
Written: 1860
Published: 1860
Impact: ?
Synopsis: No chance. Unfortunately Mark Twain also wrote a story with the same name, and when I search that’s all I get. The fact that this is anonymously written doesn’t help. I have no idea what it’s about at all. Moving on.
Title: Le Chevalier Ténèbre (The Dark Knight or
Knightshade)
Format: Novel
Author: Paul Féval
Nationality: French
Written: 1860
Published: 1860
Impact: ?
Synopsis: Can’t find out too much about this, though it does seem the first ever - perhaps only - appearance of the ouvire, which is supposed to be the contemporary to the vampire, with the one eating flesh and the other drinking blood. The ouvire is, for some reason, very short while the vampire is very tall. Other than that, I got nothin’.
Title: La Vampire
Format: Novel
Author: Paul Féval
Nationality: French
Written: 1865
Published: 1865
Impact: ?
Synopsis: Yes, he was at it again, and a third time (as you’ll see) in 1874. Seemed to like writing novels about vampires, did our Monsieur Féval. He also liked doing thing differently. In this novel, he uses a female vampire, again (seems they were more popular than I had at first thought) but has her not suck blood from her victims but (ugh) rip the scalps from their heads and attach them to her own. It seems for every year of the person’s life the vampire, Addhema (who is referred to in the book as a ghoul, just to make things even more confusing) works for the vampire king Szandor, collecting treasures for him from all over the world. For this service, it seems, she is rewarded with an extended life, and eternal beauty while each life lasts. Okay then, more confusion in this sentence: “the spell only lasted a few days: as many days as the years of life that remained to the victim”. So is that the number of days they lasted after she took them? Cause if not, well surely then taking a young victim would mean she would be expected to live thirty, forty years? But who’s to say that person was not going to get sick, or be hit by a runaway cart or something, or be mugged and killed? Seems a little arbitrary. Anyway…
To quote Lewis Carroll, stranger and stranger. Addhema seemed to have some weird compulsion to tell every one of her lovers what she was before she could get down to the deed; I mean, it’s hardly exciting foreplay is it? Oh by the way darling, before you take off your hose and get on top of me, I’m a ghoul (or a vampire, take your pick, but not someone you want to bring home to mama) and I have to rip off the scalps of my victims in order to go on living and be the beautiful girl you now see lying beside you. No, just thought I should mention it. What do you mean, you have an urgent appointment elsewhere? Was it something I said?
Title: La femme immortelle (you don’t really need that translated, do you?)
Format: Novel I think
Author: Pierre Alexis de Ponson du Terrail
Nationality: French
Written: 1869
Published: 1869
Impact: ?
Synopsis: Would appear to be the first vampire novel wherein the vampirism is not real, is shown to be a trick (and not the Dark Trick, as popularised by Rice) but one in which some of the characters continue to believe. Elements that would find their way into, among others, Dracula include the taking of blood by fangs, with the wound resembling a pin prick and the vampire, or immortal woman of the title, trying to convince her lover that one of her safety pins scratched him. Might be the first instance of the idea of making a vampire by the creature cutting itself and feeding its victim its own blood.