from: Wordsworth Editions Ltd
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Type of bind: Paperback
EAN num: 9781840225464
ISBN number: 1840225467
Label: Wordsworth Editions Ltd
Manufacturer: Wordsworth Editions Ltd
Page Count: 272
Printing Date: September 01, 2007
Publishing house: Wordsworth Editions Ltd
Sale Popularity Level: 898017
Studio: Wordsworth Editions Ltd
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Product Description:
Vampires, those dark children of the night, who rise from their coffins to suck the blood of the living, continue to hold a strange fascination and dread. In this unique collection of vampire stories you will find some of the earliest depictions of these fearful creatures as in John Polidori's The Vampyre and James Malcolm Rymer's Varney the Vampyre, a tale which held readers in thrall when it was very first published in the mid-nineteenth century. As well as these rare stories and those featuring the more well known bloodsuckers such as Le Fanu s Carmilla and Stoker s Dracula, there is a clutch of lesser known but equally frightening tales written by expert practitioners in the art of raising goose pimples. Children of the Night is a volume filled with the rich blood of chilling vampire fiction.
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The Vampire, more than any other creature of gothic folklore, has been defined by the fiction written about it. This book contains many of the short stories that were defining moments in Vampire lore. The very first to mention staking a vampire, the very first female vamp, talk of burying them at a crossroads minus their heads, the very first where they shapeshift. For true vampire lovers, this book is a must read.
There are a total of 12 tales in this book beginning with the "Vampire of Croglin Hall", and then moving on to such famous tales as "Varney the Vampyre," "The Curse of the Vourdalack," "Carmilla", and "The Horla." There is even an excerpt from Stoker's "Dracula" titled "Dracula and the Three Brides" which is in my oppinion, one of the most horrific scenes in that illustrious novel. Each of these tales is by a different author, and they range in time from the mid 1800's through Edith Wharton's Bewitched which was written in the 1900's. I am not counting the story of "The Welcome Visitor" which was written by the man who compiled these tales... it is not up to the quality of the other stories that inhabit this fine collection.
My personal favorite is "The Curse of the Vourdalak" which I immediately recognized as the foundation for the beginning of almost every modern Vampire tale (you can see it is almost identical to the opening of McCammon's Vampire tale "They Thirst"). I also had a fondness for "Carmilla" which was odd because it was so clear to me what would happen. I could not even imagine the horror readers must have felt reading these stories for the very first time back when they were written. In this day and age we have been bombarded by Vampire tales and movies... but the horror that readers must have felt back in the 1800's when they read these for the very first time must have been amazing.
Each of these stories is deserving of a read by itself, but to have them all compiled together in a single book makes this a must own for any fan of the Vampire legend. You will not find your debonair, suave vampires who woo women with their charms... instead you will find the horror of destroyed villages, children hiding in their beds as beasts lurk through their towns, women wasting away in terror from unknown assailants, men being stalked by invisible beings who drain their life as they sleep.
If you are looking for a quick and easy read, this is not it... having been written in the late 1800's through early 1900's, the language will take a bit to sink in. Once it does you will regret that we have long ago lost the beauty of our language.
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