by Bram Stoker First published 1914 To MY SON PREFACE A few months before the lamented death of husband—I might say even as the shadow of death was over him—he planned three series of short stories for publication, and the present volume is one of them. To his original list of stories in this book, I have added an hitherto unpublished episode from Dracula. It was originally excised owing to the length of the book, and may prove of interest to the many readers of what is considered my husband’s most remarkable work. The other stories have already ...Read More

2 The Judge’s House When the time for his examination drew near Malcolm Malcolmson made up his mind to somewhere to read by himself. He feared the attractions of the seaside, and also he feared completely rural isolation, for of old he knew it charms, and so he determined to find some unpretentious little town where there would be nothing to distract him. He refrained from asking suggestions from any of his friends, for he argued that each would recommend some place of which he had knowledge, and where he had already acquaintances. As Malcolmson wished to avoid friends ...Read More

3 The Squaw Nurnberg at the time was not so much exploited as it has been since then. Irving not been playing Faust, and the very name of the old town was hardly known to the great bulk of the travelling public. My wife and I being in the second week of our honeymoon, naturally wanted someone else to join our party, so that when the cheery stranger, Elias P. Hutcheson, hailing from Isthmian City, Bleeding Gulch, Maple Tree County, Neb. turned up at the station at Frankfort, and casually remarked that he was going on to see the ...Read More

4 The Secret of the Growing Gold When Margaret Delandre went to live at Brent’s Rock the whole neighbourhood to the pleasure of an entirely new scandal. Scandals in connection with either the Delandre family or the Brents of Brent’s Rock, were not few; and if the secret history of the county had been written in full both names would have been found well represented. It is true that the status of each was so different that they might have belonged to different continents—or to different worlds for the matter of that—for hitherto their orbits had never crossed. The ...Read More

5 The Gipsy Prophecy “I really think,” said the Doctor, “that, at any rate, one of us should go try whether or not the thing is an imposture.” “Good!” said Considine. “After dinner we will take our cigars and stroll over to the camp.” Accordingly, when the dinner was over, and the La Tour finished, Joshua Considine and his friend, Dr Burleigh, went over to the east side of the moor, where the gipsy encampment lay. As they were leaving, Mary Considine, who had walked as far as the end of the garden where it opened into the laneway, ...Read More

6 The Coming of Abel Behenna The little Cornish port of Pencastle was bright in the early April, when sun had seemingly come to stay after a long and bitter winter. Boldly and blackly the rock stood out against a background of shaded blue, where the sky fading into mist met the far horizon. The sea was of true Cornish hue—sapphire, save where it became deep emerald green in the fathomless depths under the cliffs, where the seal caves opened their grim jaws. On the slopes the grass was parched and brown. The spikes of furze bushes were ashy ...Read More

7 The Burial of the Rats Leaving Paris by the Orleans road, cross the Enceinte, and, turning to the you find yourself in a somewhat wild and not at all savoury district. Right and left, before and behind, on every side rise great heaps of dust and waste accumulated by the process of time. Paris has its night as well as its day life, and the sojourner who enters his hotel in the Rue de Rivoli or the Rue St. Honore late at night or leaves it early in the morning, can guess, in coming near Montrouge—if he has ...Read More

8 A Dream of Red Hands The first opinion given to me regarding Jacob Settle was a simple descriptive “He’s a down-in-the-mouth chap”: but I found that it embodied the thoughts and ideas of all his fellow-workmen. There was in the phrase a certain easy tolerance, an absence of positive feeling of any kind, rather than any complete opinion, which marked pretty accurately the man’s place in public esteem. Still, there was some dissimilarity between this and his appearance which unconsciously set me thinking, and by degrees, as I saw more of the place and the workmen, I came ...Read More

9 Crooken Sands Mr Arthur Fernlee Markam, who took what was known as the Red House above the Mains Crooken, was a London merchant, and being essentially a cockney, thought it necessary when he went for the summer holidays to Scotland to provide an entire rig-out as a Highland chieftain, as manifested in chromolithographs and on the music-hall stage. He had once seen in the Empire the Great Prince—“The Bounder King”—bring down the house by appearing as “The MacSlogan of that Ilk,” and singing the celebrated Scotch song, “There’s naething like haggis to mak a mon dry!” and he ...Read More