The Skeleton Count or The Vampire Mistress by Elizabeth Grey

The Classic Ghost Stories Podcast

Tony Walker

Science Fiction, Fiction, Drama

4.9 • 835 Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2026

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Let's go Gothick. Get your pitchfork. Get your burning brand. We're off to the castle to see the count. The Skeleton Count; or, The Vampire Mistress In the shadowed corridors of a remote castle, Count Rodolph has made a bargain that no mortal should contemplate. The price of eternal life is high, and the methods by which it is secured are terrible beyond imagining. When the corpse of the beautiful Bertha is carried from her grave to his study, something moves beneath the burial shroud. Eyes that had closed in death open once more, fixed upon the Count with a gaze both empty and aware. She will be his companion through the centuries—but what hungers might stir in one recalled from the tomb? What thoughts take root in a mind that has crossed the threshold between this world and the next? The villagers whisper of strange lights in the tower. A child is found pale and trembling in the night. And in the castle, two beings who should not exist learn what it means to be neither living nor dead. First published in 1828 in the English periodical The Casket, this early vampire tale predates both Carmilla and Dracula, exploring the dark territory between necromancy and vampirism. The story has been attributed to Elizabeth Caroline Grey, though both the authorship and original publication remain subjects of scholarly dispute. If the attribution holds, it represents the first vampire story written and published by a woman. Don't forget the radio station https://www.gravenheim.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Transcript

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0:59.4	Everybody. Everybody dies, don't think.
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1:03.7	Isn't that so?
1:07.3	You tried to get into the locked drawer today, didn't you?
1:09.4	How do the dead come back, mother?
1:11.6	What's the secret? The skeleton count or the vampire mistress by Elizabeth Gray.
1:20.6	Count Rodolf, after his impious compact with the Prince of Darkness, ceased to study alchemy or to search after the
1:29.9	elixir of life, for not only was a long lease of life assured him by the demon, but that same
1:37.4	authority had declared such pursuits to be vain and delusive. But still he dabbled in the occult sciences of magic and astrology
1:47.2	and frequently passed day after day in fruitless speculation
	...

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