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I'm reaching out to see if the community can help identify a book (or series of books) from my childhood in the 80s.

To the best of my recollection, the stories were about a family of vampires - but they may have been nonspecific "monsters."

I believe one among them was considered very handsome because he looked almost human (speculation: implying the others had varying levels of disfigurement from their vampirism/monster-ness)

Wracking my brain for further plot details, the only strand I can eke out is possibly that the family of vampires wanted to take over the world, but one among them had misgivings; that's bordering on mistaken memory, though, I'm running on empty for more plot detail.

I remember thinking for the longest time that it was one of Roald Dahl's works; the tone of the story and artwork felt very Dahl-esque, but his bibliography reveals the work I'm referencing is not his. The work was aimed at the 6 - 10 age group, not really up to YA. I'm also fairly sure this was a series of books, not just one. The artwork was sporadic, i.e. it wasn't a-picture-a-page type of story.

I read the book in English, which I'm almost sure was it original language of publication; very likely it was by an English author. I doubt the work was from before the 70s, and it would not have been from the 90s.

I've trawled the internet searching for various permutations and combinations of vampire/family/80s/children's book to no avail. I didn't think this work was that obscure, but it apparently is; I'm hoping someone out there might have ideas what this may be.

I think that this may be a book by Angela Sommer-Bodenburg. Originally published in 1986 as My Friend The Vampire, it was apparently republished In 2005 under the title The Little Vampire, possibly to tie in with the movie made based on it. That was the first of a series so you might have read a later one possibly.

Blurb from Amazon as follows: Tony, a 9-year-old horror story addict is delighted when a little vampire called Rudolph lands on his windowsill one evening, and together, the two have a series of hilarious adventures involving visits to Rudolph’s home—The Vampire Family Vault—where Tony narrowly escapes the clutches of Great-Aunt Dorothy.

From my memory, it had a very Dahl feel to the writing, and the artwork (which was sporadic) was something of a cross between Dahl and Gorey. I haven’t read it in over thirty years, but I recall the two kids becoming friends, the vampire kid bringing the human kid home, and the human kid dressing as a vampire and having to hide from the aunt, who keeps wandering around saying how she can smell a human.