Happy 205th birthday to Edgar Allan Poe - The Great Scary Short Story Author

Happy 205th birthday to Edgar Allan Poe!

“Literature is the most noble of professions. In fact, it is about the only one fit for a man. For my own part, there is no seducing me from the path. I shall be a litterateur, at least, all my life; nor would I abandon the hopes which still lead me on for all the gold in California.”

EDGAR ALLAN POE TO FREDERICK WILLIAM THOMAS
FEBRUARY 14, 1849”

Shifters: The Best Werewolf Short Stories 1800-1849 is a Gothic Readers Choice Award Winner

GOTHIC READERS CHOICE AWARD WINNER

By Gothic Readers Book Club on January 2, 2014

Although lycanthropy and shapeshifting legends have existed for countless centuries, werewolves are not considered a staple of the Gothic literary tradition. Editor Andrew Barger gives us evidence to the contrary with his collection of the best of the wolf stories from the early modern period. Many of these stories have not been republished in over 150 years. There are more than just ghosts and vampires lurking in the 1800s!

If You Like: Edgar Allan Poe, Honor de Balzac, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Prosper Mrime, James Hogg.

What was the First Vampire Story Set in Venice?

It is common for the setting of modern vampire stories and movies to be placed in the haunting city of Venice, Italy. With its Gothic palaces and watery landscape, Venice is perfect for those who wake at night and seek their prey. In 1836, however, only a handful of vampire stories had ever been written. That's when the popular French author Theophile Gautier wrote "Clarimonde" and published it in the French magazine La Morte Amoureuse. The tale is undeniable as one of the first vampire short stories and it was included in BlooDeath: The Best Vampire Stories 1800-1849.

Who Was the First American to Write a Vampire Short Story?

There has been much discussion about John Polidori, the young Italian doctor that travelled with Lord Byron and who wrote the first vampire short story in the English language. Polidori titled it "The Vampyre" and the story was published in 1819.

But who was the first American to write a vampire short story? That honor belongs to Robert Charles Sands, a lawyer and poet. His excellent scary story was titled "The Black Vampyre: A Legend of Saint Domingo" and it was published only a few months after Polidori's vampire story in 1819. "The Black Vampyre" is difficult to find. I spent time at UC San Diego spooling through microfiche and then copying the individual pages, which then had to be scanned into a computer. I included it in the award-winning BlooDeath: The Best Vampire Stories 1800-1849, along with a lengthy introduction about Sands and the interesting bond that joins these earliest vampire stories in the English language.

My Vampire Anthology is a Finalist in the International Book Awards

BlooDeath: The Best Vampire Stories 1800-1849, has been selected as a finalist award-winner in the anthology category of the International Book Awards. Pretty cool. So what's in the book?

The collection unleashes the greatest early vampire tales in the English language. Unearthed from long forgotten journals and magazines, I uncovered 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. I combed forgotten journals and mysterious texts to collect the very best vintage vampire stories from this crucial period in vampire literature. In doing so, I 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.

I added my scholarly touch to this collection by including story backgrounds, annotations (physical book), 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)

Who Was the First Female to Write a Werewolf Short Story?

Who was the first female to write a werewolf short story in the English language? In researching my anthology Shifters: The Best Werewolf Short Stories 1800-1849 I uncovered a tale by Catherine Crowe (1790-1872). She called it "A Story of a Weir-Wolf" and published it in 1846. Despite the rather boring title, its a fine lycan tale that is scary at times. At first she appears to be the first woman to write a werewolf story in the English language, but them I remembered that "Hugues the Wer-Wolf: A Kentish Legend of the Middle Ages" was attributed to Sutherland Menzies (1806-1883). That tale was published eight years before Crowe's story. There are some who believe Menzies was a pen-name for Mrs. Elizabeth Stone. If so, she was the first woman to pen a lycan story.

Came Back Haunted is Scary Flash Fiction

"Came Back Haunted," the new single by NIN, gets my vote as one of the best song titles to come around in a very long time. Much more than just a song title, though, it's flash fiction. Those three little words conjure three hundred scary ghost stories in this spectral month of October. "Need more coffins," is one I thought of...