Vikram and the Vampire or Tales of Hindu Devilry

Sir Richard Francis Burton, Vikram and the Vampire or Tales of Hindu Devilry, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1870

xxiv; 319 pages with 33 illustrations in a wood engraving by Ernest Griset; original black pictorial cloth decorated in red and gilt over beveled boards, lettered in gilt on front cover and spine, within an ornamental frame of vampires in black, and at the spine
7.5 x 5.5 x 1 in (19.2 x 14 x 3 cm)

'O King Vikram, listen to the true story which I am about to tell thee.' Thus begins Vikram and the Vampire, British Orientalist Richard F. Burton's classic retelling of the Sanskrit Vetala Panchavimshati (Twenty-five Tales of the Betal), the ever-popular tales about the legendary king Vikramaditya and the vampire, or Betal, who worries the king with stories that pose searching questions about the morals of life in ancient India. They deal with Indian customs, manners, and religious, and magical practices. At the end of each tale, the Betal poses questions that are like riddles.

Although based on earlier oral traditions, one of the stories' first retelling is found in the eleventh century Kathasaritsagara (Ocean of the Stream of Stories). Gods and demons, ghouls and kings, abound in these stories that capture mythic India at its best and bring to life an ancient world.

An intrepid explorer and traveller, and an anthropologist with avid curiosity about far-flung cultures and peoples, Burton travelled to India in 1842, just as the first Afghan war came to an end. His interest in the region took him on journeys across the Indian subcontinent, often disguised as a Muslim man. An Indophile, he was at home with the Indian classics, and this retelling provided some of the first insights into these texts to Westerners.

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