Written by Edwin Roberts and released in 1850, this was one of the stories that struck me in the excellent anthology Night’s Black Agents. The story was originally published in Reynold’s Miscellany. It is interesting because it's a fictionalised version of the Erzsébet Báthory story.
This is hinted at, at the start of the story, by it saying, “The events of which the following story derives its origin had their genesis in certain terrible facts which occurred in Hungary in the beginning of the last century” – or “based on true events” as many a modern movie might claim. This was, of course, inaccurate as Báthory lived 1560 to 1614 and her acts (if they happened) did not occur in the 18th Century.
Nevertheless, this is recognisably Báthory though she is renamed Countess Gouvina, a socialite who is famed for her lavish entertainments. Eventually, however, her social events begin to be avoided and she finds herself in love with a Prince Wladimir – a younger man who does not seem to reciprocate her feelings. She looks to find a methodology of becoming younger and consults witches and, having been told some secrets, discovers the truth of them as she gets blood on her hand, having smashed a mirror into a young maid, in a fit of rage.
Unlike the death count attributed to the historical Báthory, Countess Gouvina is listed as having killed no less than 300 maidens. Her undoing comes when her men kidnap a young peasant woman, but the girl's plucky suitor realises where she has been taken to and decides to rescue her. He gets the authorities involved after the rescue, having seen the Countess’ depravity. From his perspective we get the commentary: “To the brink of that murder pool, where the vampire-woman—as the frenzied youth thought her—drank of living blood, and bathed her limbs in its sanguine tide.” This connects the Countess with blood drinking as well as the more famous pastime and it is a very early connection, of course. Just a note that I checked the quote in a digitized version of the Reynold’s Miscellany,* the modern book actually typos this, replacing “tide” with “title”.
*The linked document is the 1851 collected Reynold’s Miscellany volume V.
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