Although entitled ‘The Vampyre’ by John Polidori in fact this book consists of three short stories by different writers but all concerned with vampires, The first is indeed the story by Polidori but it is followed by ‘The Stranger’ by Karl Adolf von Wachsmann and the final story is a chapter removed before publication from Bram Stoker’s classic ‘Dracula’, This book is the latest title from the Penguin Little Black Classics and was published on 4th September 2025 over eight years since the last single volume addition to this series appeared ‘The Constitution of the United States’ (published 6th April 2017), which was itself just over a year after the last significant addition of thirty six books on 3rd March 2016. Originally created to mark eighty years of Penguin Classics with eighty books on the 3rd September 2015 and priced at just 80 pence each this latest addition is £4.00, so we have seen a considerable increase in price although this book at 111 pages is significantly larger than examples from the first eighty, but not the second batch where one of this length would have been £2.00.

Let’s look at the stories individually, whilst not giving away any endings:

The Vampyre – John Polidori

This story deserves to be better known if only because of its history. John Polidori was Lord Byron’s doctor and was one of those tasked with writing a ghost story one wet and miserable evening by Lake Geneva in 1816, the others being Byron himself, his fellow poet Percy Shelley and Shelley’s teenage companion Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. Only Mary produced a classic, published under her later married name of Mary Shelley, and that was of course Frankenstein which I wrote about last year. The Vampyre is actually a combination of Byron’s attempt and Polidori’s later rewriting and was published in 1819, a few months after Frankenstein. The story concerns an English gentleman named Aubrey who soon after meeting the unusual but fascinating Lord Ruthven suggests that they travel together on a European tour which was so fashionable at the time. During the journey he becomes highly discomforted by Ruthven’s character and ultimately they go their separate ways, Aubrey heading to Greece to study the ancient ruins but ending up falling in love with a young Greek girl who is tragically killed and Aubrey in trying to save her falls into a deep fever when he realises she has died only to find Lord Ruthven at his bedside as he recovers. The two set off again together, but are ambushed by bandits and Ruthven is himself killed by their attackers, or is he?

The Mysterious Stranger – Karl Adolf von Wachsmann

This anonymous 1860 translation of von Wachsmann’s ‘Der Fremde’ (The Stranger) was first published in German in his collection ‘Erzählungen und Novellen’ (Stories and novellas) from 1844 over fifty years before Stoker wrote ‘Dracula’. The later unofficial translation didn’t even credit von Wachsmann never mind the translator so its origins were as mysterious as the stranger it features, but it is highly likely to be an inspiration for the famous novel, not just in the setting of the Carpathian mountains but also the vampire control of wolves and the description of the aristocratic undead main character. At around fifteen and a half thousand words it is also the longest tale in this small collection.

The story concerns an Austrian knight who after inheriting a large estate in the Carpathians decides to set off with his daughter Franziska and a niece Bertha as her companion along with the young Baron Franz von Kronstein who in enamoured with Franziska but she is not interested in him. To avoid bad weather they end up taking a route through a forest but delays mean that it gets dark before they clear the woods and they are set upon by a hungry pack of wolves. Fortunately they are near a ruined castle and thinking to get respite there they head that way only to encounter a pale mysterious stranger who is capable of scaring the wolves away but then vanishes. Many weeks later as the estate is coming into order they decide to head back towards the ruin one afternoon and again encounter the stranger just as dusk has fallen and thanking him for their deliverance they invite him to call on their castle sometime. This he duly does and whilst Franziska is impressed by him the others are wary of his taciturn manner and refusal to eat or drink despite joining them during their evening meal. He continues to call over the coming weeks, always after night has fallen and refuses all sustenance but is clearly improving as he now has a better build and colour in his cheeks, Franziska however is getting paler, has a mysterious wound on her neck and is having strange dreams of being visited by the stranger at night…

Dracula’s Guest – Bram Stoker

By far the shortest tale in the book, according to Florence Stoker, Bram’s wife, this was apparently removed from ‘Dracula’ as the book was overlong. Taking this chapter out would not however have represented much of a cut as the published novel is well over 160,000 words (419 pages in my copy) and this story is roughly 5,000 words or less than five times the length of this blog entry, so either the revisions were significantly more extensive than just this chapter or the reason for its exclusion were different. It was first published in 1914, two years after Stoker’s death and seventeen years after the novel came out. The story features an unnamed Englishman, presumably Jonathan Harker, staying in Munich and deciding to go for a drive in a carriage provided by the inn up to the surrounding hills. The innkeeper warns the driver not to be back late because of the date, it is April 30th so Walpurgisnacht is upon them when darkness falls, a time of evil spirits.

After a while the carriage reaches a crossroads where the horses are spooked and Harker wishes to go down one of the side roads but the coachman refuses explaining in broken English that there is a deserted and ruined village down there where terrible things had happened. Harker insists and ultimately as the coachman is so afraid that his limited English deserts him Harker tells him to head back to Munich leaving him to explore on foot. After making his way down to the ruins there is a sudden storm and Harker seeks shelter but the only thing with cover is an old mausoleum with an iron spike through its roof, the door oddly swings open when he leans against it and the horror begins…

Although I greatly enjoyed both Polidori’s and Stoker’s tales the best to my mind was Wachsmann’s. This blog is being posted a couple of days before Walpurgisnacht in honour of Stoker’s chapter which is set on that night.