Edited by his Wife Isabel Burton

“Les fables, loin de grandir les hommes, la Nature et Dieu,

rapetssent tout.”

Lamartine (Milton)

“One who had eyes saw it; the blind will not understand it.

A poet, who is a boy, he has perceived it; he who understands it

will be

his sire’s sire.”—Rig-Veda (I.164.16).

PREFACE

PREFACE TO THE FIRST (1870) EDITION.

INTRODUCTION

VIKRAM AND THE VAMPIRE

THE VAMPIRE’S FIRST STORY — In which a man deceives a woman.

THE VAMPIRE’S SECOND STORY — Of the Relative Villany of Men and Women.

THE VAMPIRE’S THIRD STORY — Of a High-minded Family.

THE VAMPIRE’S FOURTH STORY — Of A Woman Who Told The Truth.

THE VAMPIRE’S FIFTH STORY — Of the Thief Who Laughed and Wept.

THE VAMPIRE’S SIXTH STORY — In Which Three Men Dispute about a Woman.

THE VAMPIRE’S SEVENTH STORY — Showing the Exceeding Folly of Many Wise Fools.

THE VAMPIRE’S EIGHTH STORY — Of the Use and Misuse of Magic Pills.

THE VAMPIRE’S NINTH STORY — Showing That a Man’s Wife Belongs Not to His Body but to His Head.

THE VAMPIRE’S TENTH STORY [168] — Of the Marvellous Delicacy of Three Queens.

THE VAMPIRE’S ELEVENTH STORY — Which Puzzles Raja Vikram.

FOOTNOTES