The tale you are about to hear is one of the most famous of vampire stories and predates Bram Stoker’s "Dracula" by over quarter century.

Our old friend Henry James, as well as being a chronicler of the Gilded Age, is no stranger to the Gothic, or the ghostly tale.

The Irish author Bram Stoker is perhaps best known to us for the story of Dracula, a vampire with a thirst for both blood and vengeance.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, also known by her first married name Charlotte Perkins Stetson, lived from July 3, 1860 to August 17, 1935, and witnessed everything from the American Civil War to the Roaring Twenties to the Great Depression.

The characters in Kate Chopin’s stories are usually residents of Louisiana, and many are Creoles of various ethnic or racial backgrounds. Many of her works are set in Natchitoches in north-central Louisiana, a region where she lived.