What author invented the popular vampire motif that vampires have no reflection in a mirror and cast no shadow?

 

An astute reader, Erin McNulty, recently inquired on my Facebook page as to whether Alexandre Dumas "invented" the popular vampire motif that vampires have no reflection in a mirror and cast no shadow. She wondered why it was in the text of my English translation of Dumas's scary short story "The Vampire of the Carpathian Mountains" in the Best Vampire Short Stories 1800-1849 collection that I edited. http://www.andrewbarger.com/bestvampirestories1800.html

This was an excellent question that sent me off in search of forgotten tomes on vampire lore, which is never a bad thing! What I learned is very interesting...

It appears that until 1975 readers believed Bram Stoker, in his fantastic novel Dracula, had created these two important vampire motifs. In 1975, however, an editor named Allan Hull Watson published The Horror at Fontenay that was supposedly a "long-lost Dumas novel." Consider this text from page 178:

"I don't know who or what is attacking you. But I have my suspicions. Did you ever notice anything peculiar about Kostaki?"

"Yes," I replied. "On at least two occasions he seemed to cast no shadow in bright light, while everyone else did! And on another occasion - although it may have been imagination on my part - he came into this room to ask if my women were sufficiently attentive. He was standing with his back to that mirror, and I could swear that his image was not reflected in it!"

That is a compelling storyline, but unfortunately it does not appear to be in the original French by Dumas in "The Vampire of the Carpathian Mountains" and he did not write any novel or short story titled "The Horror at Fotenay." In my opinion the vampire motifs about not casting a shadow and no reflection in a mirror were inserted by Watson as complete embellishments to sell more books.

Bram Stoker appears to have "invented" these important vampire motifs in Dracula and they were not created decades earlier by Alexandre Dumas. The problem is solved and Stoker remains on his lofty pedestal.

Thank you, Erin, for keeping me honest in my research!

#bestvampirestories #vampirestories #classicvampiretales #vampirecarpathianmountains #vampires #classicvampirestories #bramstoker #alexandredumas

New English Translation of "The Vampire of the Carpathian Mountains" by Alexander Dumas

In 1848 Alexander Dumas published "The Vampire of Carpathian Mountains" (also called "The Pale Lady") in his French short story collection One Thousand and One Ghosts. It is a fantastic book that contains some of the best supernatural tales Dumas ever penned. If you have at least a reading knowledge of the French language, it is well worth the effort of flagging it down on Gutenberg.org or some other site.

Of course if your French needs a bit of a refresher from high school, it becomes a more difficult task. This is especially true of Dumas's signature scary short story : "The Vampire of Carpathian Mountains". When BlooDeath: The Best Vampire Stories 1800-1849 was compiled, I included a 1848 translation of the Dumas vampire story from the London New Monthly Magazine. It was the rag, after all, that printed John Polidori's "The Vampyre" in 1819, which is also contained in my collection and is considered the first vampire short story to originate in the English language. So I figured the New Monthly Magazine knew a thing or two about vampire stories and would give the English translation the attention it rightly deserved.

Only after I published the classic vampire anthology did I realize I was wrong. It was brought to my attention that the original French version by Dumas included a poem that was nowhere to be found in English translation by theNew Monthly Magazine. Not only that, but the ending seemed rushed. I turned paler than a person under the throes of vampirism. I had done what is a no-no for one of my collections--I had published an abridged version of a classic short story and fallen victim the horrible magazine practice of trying to save space on the printed page.

With the aid of a translator in Montreal and a little help from online translators, I went to work. A month later I had in front of me an English translation of The Vampire of the Carpathian Mountains in a form that is much closer to what Dumas originally intended. I immediately updated the ebook versions of the collection and they are live now with the non-abridged story. I hope you enjoy it and forgive my faux pas.

#VampireCarpathianMountains #DumasVampireStory