Wake Not The Dead by Johann Ludwig Tieck

Before Stephen King’s Pet Semetery, there was Johann Ludwig Tieck’s 1820 Wake Not the Dead. The story centers around a count who marries for passion and is despondent when his bride dies. He soon marries another woman, has two children with her, and finds this gentle wife inspires a joy and serenity in his household that was not there when his first wife lived.

But as the years pass, the count misses the fervor of his earlier marriage and entreats a sorcerer to restore her to life. After three nights and three warnings of, “Wake not the dead,” the sorcerer complies with the count’s request. The count sends away his second wife and the evil begins in earnest. Read it online.