Books with title The Lady of the Shroud

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.

Rupert Saint Leger inherits his uncle's estate worth more than one million pounds, on condition that he live for a year in his uncle's castle in the Land of the Blue Mountains on the Dalmatian coast. There Rupert tries to win the trust of the conservative mountaineer population by using his fortune to buy them modern arms (from a South American country that has unexpectedly found itself at peace) for their fight against Turkish invasion (the story was written shortly before the Balkan Wars).One wet night, he is visited in his room in the castle by a pale woman wearing a wet shroud, seeking warmth. He lets her dry herself before his fire, and she flees before morning. She visits several more times, all at night, and they hardly speak, but he falls in love with her, despite thinking she is a vampire. He visits the local church and finds her in a glass-topped stone coffin in the crypt. Despite misgivings he declares his love, be she living or undead, and she arranges the marriage in an Orthodox ceremony conducted by candlelight in the church one night, although he still does not know her name, and she says she must still live alone in the crypt for the present.Soon afterwards, she is kidnapped by a forward party of Turkish troops, and he learns that she, Teuta, is not undead, but the living daughter of the local Voivode, who is currently returning from a visit to America. She had fallen into a trance, and was declared dead, but then revived, and the local leaders and clergy spread a story of vampirism which was more acceptable than the truth to the uneducated locals, after the (mistaken) news of her death. Living up to this story, she had spent her days in the coffin in the crypt, but during heavy rain when the crypt flooded, came out seeking warmth in the castle in which she had grown up, and knew all the secret entrances, and hence her meetings with Rupert behind locked gates.Rupert leads a relief force which kills her kidnappers and rescues her. But news immediately arrives that the Voivode has just returned to the country only to be kidnapped by Turks himself. They race back to the coast, and Rupert unloads an aeroplane with a near-silent engine from the munitions ship which has also just arrived, along with sets of bullet-proof clothes. The kidnapped Voivode is tracked to a nearby castle ruin, and Rupert pilots the plane onto the castle wall as if it were a balloon or dirigible, and lowers Teuta by rope to her father. He dons a set of the bullet proof clothes which Teuta and Rupert are also wearing, and Rupert hauls both up to the aircraft which he silently flies off. The castle is then attacked by local troops and the Turks defeated.Teuta subsequently reveals her marriage to Rupert to her father, who welcomes him into the family and the country.

• This version of The Lady of the Shroud includes a biography of the author Bram Stoker at the end of the book• This includes life before and after the release of the bookBram Stoker wrote numerous novels, short stories, essays, and lectures, but Dracula is by far his most famous work. Stoker coined the term undead, and his interpretation of vampire folklore continues to this day to shape the portrayals of legendary monsters. Contents: From The Journal of Occultism; The Will of Roger Melton; Vissarion; The Coming of the Lady; Under the Flagstaff; A Ritual at Midnight; The Pursuit in the Forest; The Empire of the Air; The Flashing of the Handjar; and Balka.