The Mysterious Stranger

Translated from the German. Note by Mike Ashley in Vampires: Classic Tales (2011): "When this story first appeared in translation in England, in Chambers's Repository for February 1854, it bore no author credit and has remained anonymous until now. [Footnote: I am indebted to Douglas A. Anderson and Thomas Honegger for tracing the identity of the author of this story and for providing background details.] Its original source was unknown and when Montague Summers included it in his anthology Victorian Ghost Stories in 1934, he wrongly dated it 1860. As a consequence, the story has been robbed of its true importance. It first appeared in Germany in 1844 and is therefore the earliest known vampire story to be set in the Carpathian mountains, the setting for Dracula's castle."