Items related to Blood Thirst: 100 Years of Vampire Fiction
Synopsis
Since the 1897 publication of Dracula by Bram Stoker, the vampire has been one of the most enduring themes of modern literature. In this book, Wolf -- scholar of fantastic literature -- brings together over two dozen tales that run the gamut of the vampire's place in fiction from some of the greatest writers of the past century -- Woody Allen, Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Anne Rice, Roger Zelazny, & more. Includes classic adventure tales contemporary with Stoker's novel, as well as stories highlighting the psychological vampire, the science fiction vampire, the non-human vampire, the humorous vampire, & the heroic vampire. ''Definitive''.
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About the Author
Leonard Wolf writes poetry, fiction, social history, and biography. His books include A Dream of Dracula, The Essential Dracula, and the novels The False Messiah and The Glass Mountain.
From Kirkus Reviews
A roundup of over two dozen vampire tales illustrating the evolution of the genre since Bram Stoker, gathered by Wolf, our tireless annotator of terrorlit (Dracula, p. 372, etc.). What, Wolf asks, makes vampires so attractive today? He notes in his cogent Introduction that vampire tales draw from the gruesome in mainstream horror, the pulsing eroticism of bodice rippers, the supernatural in sword-and-sorcery. But blood is the primary metaphor, Wolf says, drawing on folk knowledge and traditions from Cain and Abel to Christ and transubstantiation, while the modern blood exchange brings on a kind of sexual dream- bliss beyond the facts of intercourse. Illustrating the classic adventure tale is Wolf's exciting excerpt from Stephen King's only vampire novel, Salem's Lot (1975), with good guy Mark versus a whole townful of bloodsuckers. Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman's ``Luella Miller'' draws the ``psychological vampire'' as a thief of energy rather than a blood drinker. The science-fiction vampire in C.L. Moore's ``Shambleau'' indulges in monstrous, slimy couplings, while the immortal woman in the excerpt from Whitley Streiber's erotically powerful ``The Hunger'' blesses her victims with lives that last for 200 years. The nonhuman vampire in Hanns Heinz Ewers's ``The Spider,'' a beautiful woman in a window, hypnotizes her victims into the supreme delight of suicide (she is, literally, a spider). The heroic vampire in Anne Rice's ``The Master of Rampling Gate'' remains invisible except to the heroine. Also on hand: Joyce Carol Oates, John Cheever, and E.F. Benson. And don't miss Woody Allen's ``Count Dracula.'' A bedtime book with a bite to it. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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- PublisherDiane Pub Co
- Publication date1997
- ISBN 10 0788194720
- ISBN 13 9780788194726
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages379
- EditorLeonard Wolf
- Rating
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