Brian Stableford

The Vampire Countess

(by Paul Féval, translated by Brian Stableford)

Back in the mid- to late-nineties, Brian Stableford took a break from his normal fiction-writing career and embarked on an ambitious project to translate a trio of French vampire novels by Paul Féval (1816-1887).

All three novels were initially serialized as “feuilletons”, in one of the major French newspapers of the time, and later republished as novel in their own right. This was very similar to other more well-known contemporaries of Féval, such as Alexander Dumas: his “The Three Musketeers” was initially serialized in 1842-3. Féval’s debut story was in 1843.

The three vampire novels are “The Vampire Countess” (possibly 1855, repub. 1856), “Knightshade” (1875, repub. 1960), and “Vampire City” (1867, repub. 1875).

Brian began his project with “Vampire City”, which was published by Sarob Press in 1999 and won our Children of the Night Award for that year, Two years later Sarob Press published “Knightshade”. Brian then progressed to work on the first vampire novel, at the same time changing publisher to the American Black Coat Press, who first reprinted “Vampire City” and “Knightshade”, and then towards the end of 2003, published “The Vampire Countess”.

With the current plethora of vampire novels all building upon the legend of Dracula, or re-inventing his legend, it is fascinating to have the chance to step back and read tales of vampires from before Stoker’s time.

“The Vampire Countess” mixes a love story, a detective story, recent political events, and a supernatural tale into one. The current affairs plotline threatens, in my view, to slow the otherwise good pace of Féval’s work.

René and Angela are mere weeks away from their wedding day, when a beautiful and mysterious Hungarian woman appears on the scene. René finds himself inexplicably drawn to her and proceeds to have covert meetings with her, but Angela quickly suspects that something is going on, and starts following him. They are introduced through one of these scenes, with Angela following René - and Angela being followed by her adoptive father, Sévérin, which has noticed a change in her character.

The surreptitious meeting has been arranged at a church, and upon their arrival at the church, each sees a beautiful blonde woman exiting with another man. René knows this is not “his” temptress, as she, we soon discover, is a black-haired beauty called Lila. As Féval himself later puts it: “A single glance was sufficient to see that in spite of the very close resemblance, that this was not the mysterious Countess.”

As the story progresses, we learn more of René & Angela’s courtship, and how Sévérin tries to piece together what he sees is happening to René with mysterious deaths, “miraculous catches” outside a riverside pub, and the strange disappearance of three German nobles. Wrapped around everything is the comparatively recent rise of Napoleon Bonaparte (the story is set in the early 1800s).

Slowly, the clues about the vampire come through. For us knowing readers, the minute Rene sees Lila’s family motto “In vita mors, in morte vita!” we know he is in the clutches of a vampire, but even at that point, there are enough red herrings to cast doubt in our minds. Particularly the things that are first suggested of the blonde sister, then told via Lila telling René of her family history. This story is told as the story of Addhema and Count Szandor, who live on the banks of the Sava. Addhema is known as “the vampire of Uszel” by the locals, and she apparently did her thing upon the mother of Lila and her sister (the blonde beauty, who is the Countess Marcian Gregoryi). Addhema’s mode of vampirism is to scalp her victim and wear the hair, gaining a day of life for every year of life that the victim had enjoyed. Then she tells him that Addhema is permitted to have a male lover, but only if she tells him her story first.

The plot thickens when we discover that the Countess is somehow involved in a conspiracy surrounding Bonaparte, and three Republicans who recognize his intentions and want to stop him.

Eventually, Féval starts to bring the threads together, and we reach the climax of each plot in the story: that for Angela, pining for René, that for René, trapped “for his own safety” by Lila, for Sévérin, and for Lila and the Countess.

I particularly loved the epilogue, but I can’t tell you or it would completely spoil the story!

Brian has done a fantastic job in taking on this project, and creating a readable novel (I’m sure we all remember trying to do French translation at school, and it always sounded stilted, and many of use probably recall trying to read old English - similarly, old French is not the same as modern French) and bringing a very original tale back to life.

I know Brian plans to translate at least one more of Féval’s novels, “Jean Diable”, which is a crime novel. not a vampire novel. I hope he will also have the opportunity to La Chambre des Amours, since he tells us in his introduction that when “The Vampire Countess” was republished, it was done so along with this book, and “The Vampire Countess” does in fact make one reference to the book, so it would be nice to fill in that (unimportant) gap.

- Blackie