They're lurking under the cover of darkness and between the covers of this book. Here, in all their horror and all their glory, are the great vampires of literature: male and female, invisible and metamorphic, doomed and daring.
Their skin deathly pale, their nails curved like claws, their fangs sharpened for the attack, they are gathered for the kill and for the chill, brought frighteningly to life by Bram Stoker, Fritz Leiber, Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, Charles L. Grant, Tanith Lee, and other masters of the macabre. Careful—they are all crafty enough to steal their way into your imagination and steal away your hopes for a restful sleep.
Collected here are 32 stories featuring the frightening creature--the vampire. Just in time for Halloween, this character will be shown in all its forms--male, female, alive, undead, on the prowl, in the bedroom, hungry and hedonistic, doomed and daring.
Vampire Stories Acknowledgments Introduction by Alan Ryan
Fragment of a Novel (1816)
George Gordon, Lord Byron
The Vampyre (1819)
John Polidori
Varney the Vampyre, or, the Feast of Blood (excerpt) (1845)
James Malcolm Rymer
The Mysterious Stranger (1860)
Anonymous
Carmilla (1872)
J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Good Lady Ducayne (1896)
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Dracula's Guest (1897)
Bram Stoker
Luella Miller (1903)
Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
For the Blood Is the Life (1911)
F. Marion Crawford
The Transfer (1912)
Algernon Blackwood
The Room in the Tower (1912)
E. F. Benson
An Episode of Cathedral History (1919)
M. R. James
A Rendezvous in Averoigne (1931)
Clark Ashton Smith
Shambleau (1933)
C. L. Moore
Revelations in Black (1933)
Carl Jacobi
School for the Unspeakable (1937)
Manly Wade Wellman
The Drifting Snow (1939)
August Derleth
Over the River (1941)
P. Schuyler Miller
The Girl with the Hungry Eyes (1949)
Fritz Leiber
The Mindworm (1950)
C. M. Kornbluth
Drink My Blood (1951)
Richard Matheson
Place of Meeting (1953)
Charles Beaumont
The Living Dead (1967)
Robert Bloch
Pages from a Young Girl's Journal (1975)
Robert Aickman
The Werewolf and the Vampire (1975)
R. Chetwynd-Hayes
Love-Starved (1979)
Charles L. Grant
Cabin 33 (1980)
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Unicorn Tapestry (1980)
Suzy McKee Charnas
Following the Way (1982)
Alan Ryan
The Sunshine Club (1983)
Ramsey Campbell
The Men & Women of Rivendale (1984)
Steve Rasnic Tem
Bite-Me-Not or, Fleur De Feu (1984)
Tanith Lee
Appendix I: Vampire Novels Appendix II: Vampire Movies
Overview
They're lurking under the cover of darkness and between the covers of this book. Here, in all their horror and all their glory, are the great vampires of literature: male and female, invisible and metamorphic, doomed and daring.
Their skin deathly pale, their nails curved like claws, their fangs sharpened for the attack, they are gathered for the kill and for the chill, brought frighteningly to life by Bram Stoker, Fritz Leiber, Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, Charles L. ...