Christopher Frayling (editor) · 1978 (rev. 1991; edition 2016) · EPUB · Calibre ID 4593
Resurfaced in Remember Your Oath (2026-10-24).
Role in the triad
Genealogy and inversion: Lenore → ‘the dead travel fast’; the vampire tale opens with an extracted oath that silences the living
Why this book
Supplies the line of descent from the ballad (Bürger’s ‘Lenore’ quoted in Dracula ch. 1; Frayling’s note on its removal from the Munich section) and the primary texts where the oath is the vampire’s first tool: Byron’s ‘Fragment’, Polidori, and the self-cursing ballad in Tolstoy’s ‘Vourdalak’. Polidori’s Aubrey is Kostandin inverted.
Quotations
Verified against the book’s own text on the day of the reading.
- ‘Swear by all your soul reveres, by all your nature fears, swear that for a year and a day you will not impart your knowledge of my crimes or death to any living being in any way, whatever may happen, or whatever you may see.’ (Polidori, The Vampyre; Part Two §2)
- ‘Remember your oath, and know, if not my bride today, your sister is dishonoured. Women are frail!’ (Polidori; Part Two §2)
- ‘Swear it, by all that – ’ He here dictated an oath of great solemnity. (Byron, ‘Fragment of a Story’; Part Two §2)
- ‘I swear to be faithful to you and never to forget you. If I should break my oath, come to me after your death and drink all my heart’s blood!’ (A. K. Tolstoy, ‘The Family of the Vourdalak’; Part Two §4)
- One of my companions whispered to another the line from Burger’s ‘Lenore’: – Denn die Todten reiten schnell – (For the dead travel fast.) (Stoker, Dracula ch. 1; Part Two §6)
- The quotation ‘the dead travel fast’ (from Bürger’s poem Lenore ) was at some stage removed from the Munich section of the novel (Frayling, headnote to §6)
Themes
Aubrey · Byron’s Fragment · Dracula’s Guest · Lenore · oath as gag · Polidori · Ruthven · Stoker’s working papers · the dead travel fast · vampire genealogy · Vourdalak