Richard Dalby (ed.) – Dracula’s Brood: Rare Vampire Stories by Friends and Contemporaries of Bram Stoker (Crucible, 1987, Equation, 1989)
Introduction – Richard Dalby
William Gilbert – The Last Lords of Gardonal
Eliza Lynn Linton – The Fate of Madame Cabanel
Phil Robinson – The Man-Eating Tree
Vasile Alecsandrai – The Vampyre
Anne Crawford – A Mystery of the Campagna
Julian Hawthorne – Ken’s Mystery
Arthur Conan Doyle – The Parasite
Mary Elizabeth Braddon – Good Lady Ducayne
Mary Cholmondeley – Let Loose
Vincent O’Sullivan – Will
H. B. Marriott Watson – The Stone Chamber
Hume Nisbet – The Vampire Maid
Hume Nisbet – The Old Portrait
Vernon Lee – Marsyas in Flanders
Louise J. Strong – An Unscientific Story
Sabine Baring-Gould – A Dead Finger
Horacio Quiroga – The Feather Pillow
Algernon Blackwood – The Singular Death of Morton
Alice & Claude Askew – Aylmer Vance and the Vampire
Ulric Daubeny – The Sumach
M. R. James – Wailing Well
Edward Heron-Allen – Another Squaw?
E. R. Punshon – The Living Stone
Frederick Cowles – Princess Of Darkness
Eliza Lynn Linton – The Fate Of Madame Cabenal: Pievrot, a hamlet in Brittany. Jules Cabanel, father of his housekeeper Adele’s child, returns from Paris with an English bride. Adele welcomes her new mistress with a bouquet of scarlet poppies, belladonna and aconite, and, in concert with Martin Briolic, is soon plotting her rivals downfall. The high rate of infant mortality in the region gives them all the ammunition they need …
Frederick Cowles – Princess Of Darkness: Now we’re in Budapest, and the clutches of the 400 year old Transylvanian Princess Bessenyei, so no prizes for guessing she’s a full on vampire with all the trappings. Wherever she goes, she leaves a trail of dead lovers in her wake until Harry Gorton, an English diplomat, teams up with his occultist friend Istvan Zichy join forces against her. A marvelous pulp romp with a suspenseful climax, and it’s possible you won’t double guess the ending.
E. R. Punshon – The Living Stone: “What could any man do against fifty tons of granite made animate?” Good question, especially when it flings itself upon you with a great leap and gluts on your blood. The professor, researching human sacrifice in Cornwall, stakes out the ‘hunting stone’ in Missing Lane following a series of mysterious disappearances in the locality.
Hume Nisbet – The Old Portrait: Utterly charming Victorian horror. When he scrubs away the “bloated, piggish visage of a landlord” from the canvas, he discovers the masterly portrait of a beautiful woman underneath. Fascinated, he spends Christmas Eve gazing at his find. Come midnight, and the lovely lady comes floating out of the frame..
Hume Nisbet – The Vampire Maid: A reclusive artist takes up residence in a cottage and falls for the attractive invalid Ariadne Brunnell. Her health begins to return.
Mary Elizabeth Braddon – Good Lady Ducayne: Bella lands the position of ladies maid to the ancient, wizened Adelaide Ducayne, and spends the winter touring Italy with her and sinister physician Dr. Parravicini. The old girl’s is soon dramatically improved, although Bella isn’t feeling too clever ….
Edward Heron-Allen – Another Squaw?: Title alludes to Stokers horrible tale of the American tourist, the cat and the Iron Maiden. This one is set at a Marine Biological Station, and relates the events leading to the death of Jennifer Pendeen B.Sc., savaged by an Angler fish.
Mary Cholmondeley – Let Loose: Wet-Waste-On-The-Wold, Yorkshire. When Sir Roger Despard, a man of many vices, lay on his deathbed, he did so denying God and his Angels, declaring that all were damned as he, and that Satan was strangling him to death. Taking a knife, he cut off his hand and swore an oath that, if he were to go down and burn in hell, his hand would roam the earth and throttle others as he was being throttled. Thirty years after his death, a young man persuades an old clergyman to open the crypt …
Horacio Quiroga – The Feather Pillow: Even given the heady standards set by the The Living Stone, The Sumach (an excellent ‘vampire tree’ outing) and Another Squaw?, this one is pretty bizarre. Recently wed, Alicia is wasting away before the eyes of her dominant husband. What could be causing her illness? (Clue: it isn’t a haunted hot-water bottle).
Alice & Claude Askew – Aylmer Vance and the Vampire: Hereditary vampirism in the Scottish Highlands. Paul marries beautiful redhead Jessica MacThane, the last of her clan, who bears a striking resemblance to her ancestress, Zaida the witch, the wife of a murderer. Since Zaida’s day, the legend has persisted of “a pale woman clad in white, flitting about the cottages at night, and where she passed, sickness and death were sure to intervene …”
H. B. Marriott Watson – The Stone Chamber: Utterbourne Village, Devon. Rupert Marvin, an eighteenth century rake and murderer, does his little bit to upset the wedding plans of the besotted Warrington and Marion. You’ll most likely prefer Warrington when he’s demonically possessed by the vampire, boozing, cursing and pawing every woman in sight. Not a patch on the same author’s The Devil On The Marsh, but good fun none-the-less.
Sabine Baring Gould – The Dead Finger: When it comes to leftie-haters, very few could outdo Dennis Wheatley, but the Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould certainly gave it his best shot in this 1904 shocker. Who is to blame for the vampiric digit which persecutes our narrator so? As the undead himself explains: whinging paupers!
“Folk once called us Anarchists, Nihilists, Socialists, Levelers, now they call us the Influenza …. we the social failures, the generally discontented, coming up out of our cheap and nasty graves in the form of physical disease.”
I’d so have that engraved on my headstone if only I could afford one!
see also the Dracula’s Brood thread on the Vault forum
Vault Of Evil 