Robert Lory – The Witching Of Dracula

Robert Lory – The Witching Of Dracula (New English Library, 1977)

When the blood countess returns, even Dracula is filled with horror!

Blurb:

One afternoon a fine, strong young man named Janos strayed too far into the solemn hills above his tiny Hungarian village. Suddenly he came upon an ancient castle, a dark, mysterious place where, according to legend, a young woman had been murdered many years before.

Venturing down into the cavernous dungeons, Janos discovered the legendary bed chamber. If the stories were true… this was the place! The place where Elizabeth Bathory had been walled up to die!

Then he saw it. A small skeleton crumpled before a massive iron gateway. Was it Elizabeth Bathory? Fighting a desire to turn and run, Janos crept past the bleached bones to the inner chamber. There, in the center of the room, was a huge, dust-covered glass box.

Trembling, he wiped the dust away. His eyes widened with horror. Inside was the body of a beautiful naked woman!

The fifth of nine novels in the original Pinnacle series (NEL only reprinted six) sees Dracula reunited with his old sparring partner, Elizabeth Bathory, the ex-Bloody Countess who has since reinvented herself as a psychic sponge and is out to destroy the old count!

Who did the NEL covers for the Dracula Returns series? This, the first and Drums look to have something of the Bruce Pennington about them …

Valentine Penrose – The Bloody Countess

Valentine Penrose – The Bloody Countess (NEL, 1972)

Much admired history of the life and bloody crimes of Elizabeth Bathory, which, in Penrose’s capable hands, reads like a savage Gothic novel from the M. G. Lewis/ de Sade-in-Justine-mode school. Not to be confused with Robert Lory’s The Witching Of Dracula which addresses the Countess’s improbable adventures centuries after her death.

Thanks to Justin Marriott of Paperback Fanatic for the scan!

Peter Haining – The Dracula Scrapbook

Peter Haining (ed.) – The Dracula Scrapbook (Nel, 1976)

Tony Masero

Includes:

Peter Haining – Introduction
Christopher Lee – Foreword
Charles Dickens jnr. – Vampires And Ghouls
James Malcolm Rymer – Varney the Vampyre: Chapter 1
Madame Emily de Laszovoska Gerard – Transylvanian Superstitions
Gabriel Ronay – Exploring The Bloody Myth Of Dracula & Vampires
Dr. Franz Hartmaan – An Authentic Vampire Story
Tim Stout – The Vampire In Films
Montague Summers – The Dracu-Spirit That Bit
Kingsley Amis – Dracula, Frankenstein, Sons & Co.
Christopher Lee – Dracula And I
Forrest J. Ackerman – Bela Lugosi: Public Enemy No. 1
Boris Karloff (Michael Avallone) – The Vampire Sleeps
Denis Gifford – The Day The Comics Went Bats
Manly Wade Wellman – The Vampire Of Shiloh
Lee Coye – Weirdisms
S. J. Saunders – The Velden Hunt
Ivor J. Brown – The Unquiet Grave Of The Vampire
Elliott O’Donnell – The Vampire Society
Daniel Farson – The Cult Of Dracula
Bernard Davies – The Dracula Society
Dr. Donald A. Reed – The Count Dracula Society
Les Heinman – Meet The Real Count Dracula

An absolute belter from Peter Haining. The title says it all – this is a compilation of articles, newspaper clippings, movie reviews, short stories, stills and artwork pertaining to the undead. Wildly entertaining from cover to cover, it’s easy to overlook the fact that there’s plenty of (then) new information contained in these hallowed pages, and the exhumation of long-forgotten writings is another definite point in its favour.

Way up there on the demonik shortlist of essential vampire reads (Paul Barber’s Vampires, Burial and Death occupying the top spot), Haining was on a roll during the mid-seventies, and his The Penny Dreadful and other work  for Gollancz are particularly recommended.

Haining attempted to perform the same service for Mary Shelley’s immortal creation with The Frankenstein File, again for NEL, the following year, but to this reader at least, while interesting enough, it isn’t a patch on The Dracula Scrapbook.

NB: The NEL publication is not to be confused with his far later Souvenir Press offering of the same title which is actually the remaindered “The Dracula Centenary Book” given a hasty makeover and bunged back on the shelves.