Friday, November 26, 2021

Best Vampire Short Stories 1800-1849 Anthology Available in Hardback for the 1st Time

 


Just in time for the holidays, The Best Vampire Short Stories 1800-1850 is now available in for the first time in hardcover. You can buy it on Amazon for $18.98 with free Prime shipping: https://amzn.to/32sfNl2

An anthology award finalist in the International Book Awards, this collection unleashes the greatest early vampire tales in the English language. Unearthed from long forgotten journals and magazines, Andrew Barger has found the very best vampire short stories from the first half of the 19th century. They are collected for the first time in this groundbreaking book on the origins of vampire lore.

The cradle of all vampire short stories in the English language is the first half of the 19th century. Andrew Barger combed forgotten journals and mysterious texts to collect the very best vintage vampire stories from this crucial period in vampire literature. In doing so, Andrew unearthed the second and third vampire stories originally published in the English language, neither printed since their first publication nearly 200 years ago. Also included is the first vampire story originally written in English by John Polidori after a dare with Lord Byron and Mary Shelley. The book contains the first vampire story by an American who was a graduate of Columbia Law School. The book further includes the first vampire stories by an Englishman and German, including the only vampire stories by such renowned authors as Alexander Dumas, Théophile Gautier and Joseph le Fanu.

As readers have come to expect from Andrew, he has added his scholarly touch to this collection by including story backgrounds, annotations, author photos and a foreword titled "With Teeth." The ground-breaking stories are:

1819 The Vampyre - John Polidori (1795-1821)
1823 Wake Not the Dead - Ernst Raupach (1784-1852)
1848 The Vampire of the Carpathian Mountains - Alexander Dumas (1802-1870)
1839 Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter - Joseph le Fanu (1814-1873)
1826 Pepopukin in Corsica - Arthur Young (1741-1820)
1819 The Black Vampyre: A Legend of Saint Domingo - Robert C. Sands (1799-1832)
1836 Clarimonde - Théophile Gautier (1811-1872)


#BlackFridayHorrorBook #VampireTales #Vampirestories #vampireshortstories #horroranthology #horrorstories

Saturday, November 20, 2021

A BRIEF HISTORY OF VAMPIRES & WEREWOLVES IN IRELAND & THE UNITED KINGDOM (AND SOME OF EUROPE) on BOOK RIOT

Annika Barranti Klein has recently given a good overview article on Book Riot regarding the history of werewolves and vampires in the UK and Ireland.  https://bookriot.com/history-of-vampires-and-werewolves-in-ireland-and-the-uk/ It is apparent she has conducted her research (IMHO) as she refers to the book I edited and annotated: The Best Werewolf Short Stories 1800-1849

Transformation of the werewolf in literature made its greatest strides in the 19th century when the shape-shifting monster leaped from poetry to the short story. It happened when this shorter form of literature was morphing into darker shapes thanks in no small part to Edgar Allan Poe, Honoré de Balzac, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Prosper Mérimée, James Hogg, and so many others in Europe and the United States

The fifty year period between 1800 and 1849 is truly the cradle of all werewolf short stories. For the first time in one anthology, Andrew Barger has compiled the best werewolf stories from this period. The stories are "Hugues the Wer-Wolf: A Kentish Legend of the Middle Ages," "The Man-Wolf," "A Story of a Weir-Wolf," "The Wehr-Wolf: A Legend of the Limousin," and "The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains." It is believed that two of these fine stories have never been republished in over one hundred and fifty years since the original printing. Read the scary short stories of "The Best Werewolf Short Stories 1800-1849" tonight, just make sure it is not by the light of a full moon!"


#BestWerewolfStories #BestWerewolfBooks #BestWerewolfShortStories #AnnikaBarrantiKlein #AndrewBarger #ClassicWerewolves #Werewolves #UKWerewolves #IrishWerewolves

Sunday, November 14, 2021

The Unholy Compact Abjured by Charles Pigault-Lebrun (1753-1835)

 


The Unholy Compact Abjured was published by French novelist Charles Pigault-Lebrun (1753-1835) in 1825. This is a very early vampire story and was only the fourth published in the English language. "The Vampyre" by John Polidori in 1819, "The Black Vampyre" by Robert Sands was also published in 1819 and "Wake Not the Dead" by Ludwig Tieck in 1823 are the prior three lycan tales.

They are included in The Best Vampire Stories 1800-1849: A Classic Vampire Anthology. "The Unholy Compact Adjured" is not, however, since it is rather flamboyant and fails to reach the level of character and story-line of the others. It is still worth a read on a dark night.