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The Literary Werewolf: An Anthology
A werewolf anthology that covers new terrain. Its stories span centuries. Its storytellers, from Stephen King to Saki, de Maupassant to Kipling, Seabury Quinn to Ovid, are eclectic. Its premise delves deep into its subject.
295 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
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March 17, 2025The Literary Werewolf. I like that moniker. If I ever start a book tube, booktok, or bookstagram page, I might just snaffle it to snarl out my rabid takes.
May 12, 2015
The quality if this anthology is actually three stars, but due to the rarity of anthologies such as this, it deserves four.
There are a variety of stories from different decades and with different takes on the werewolf myth. The stories are categorized by the type of werewolf rather than the date of publication, which is interesting.
The major flaw of this anthology is that the works that have been translated to English are not well written. "The Lay of the Were-wolf" in particular is lacking the quality writing that other translations provide. This makes the translated works less enjoyable.
This book also contains a few excerpts from larger works. The anthology would be improved if summaries of the larger works were included to make the excerpts more readable.
Since this book is being used in college classes, the addition of a timeline of the publication dates of the stories (since the stories aren't in publication order) would be useful for comparing themes of and the development of the werewolf myth across the centuries.
There are a variety of stories from different decades and with different takes on the werewolf myth. The stories are categorized by the type of werewolf rather than the date of publication, which is interesting.
The major flaw of this anthology is that the works that have been translated to English are not well written. "The Lay of the Were-wolf" in particular is lacking the quality writing that other translations provide. This makes the translated works less enjoyable.
This book also contains a few excerpts from larger works. The anthology would be improved if summaries of the larger works were included to make the excerpts more readable.
Since this book is being used in college classes, the addition of a timeline of the publication dates of the stories (since the stories aren't in publication order) would be useful for comparing themes of and the development of the werewolf myth across the centuries.
May 27, 2023
Great collection of stories from a variety of periods and authors.
November 23, 2015
I should note that this is barely three stars. Really more like 2.5. The strength of any short story collection is the quality of the stories therein, and this is an extremely mixed bag. There are plenty of quality stories, and even a couple of very good ones, but the vast bulk are just a slog.
Another extremely annoying aspect of this is that the prewords completely give away everything that's going to happen in the story, literally giving a beginning to end summary of it. Perhaps I'm not literary enough to appreciate this, but I generally dislike when a book gives itself away. Once I realize that they were spoilered up to the neck, I stopped reading them, so I have no idea whether any noteworthy insights lay within.
One other thing of note: Stephen King is listed as an author for this collection. This is curious, as his contribution is a single page. Literally the front and back of one page. It's an excerpt from one of his novels, and is so threadbare that it's amazing it was included at all. I suspect it was only included so that they could have King's name on the cover. Poor show, poor show indeed.
Another extremely annoying aspect of this is that the prewords completely give away everything that's going to happen in the story, literally giving a beginning to end summary of it. Perhaps I'm not literary enough to appreciate this, but I generally dislike when a book gives itself away. Once I realize that they were spoilered up to the neck, I stopped reading them, so I have no idea whether any noteworthy insights lay within.
One other thing of note: Stephen King is listed as an author for this collection. This is curious, as his contribution is a single page. Literally the front and back of one page. It's an excerpt from one of his novels, and is so threadbare that it's amazing it was included at all. I suspect it was only included so that they could have King's name on the cover. Poor show, poor show indeed.
July 5, 2016
The division by archetype made for really interesting reading. I truly felt like there were no types of werewolf stories left out of this anthology. for the most part, even stories I didn't like were infirmary and had an obvious place amongst the others. I only had two major issues with this collection. One, I felt as if some of the chapters taken from longer pieces were weak. they didn't necessarily add to the Werewolf mythos that the collection was analyzing; with those segments I often found that if I didn't read the story background they would have been incomprehensible, or at least lacking in any forward movement. the second was the fact that there were particular stories that were based heavily in racism that the editor ignored in the discussion of them, or didn't give any weight to. there was at least one story whose prevalent racism outweighed it's analytic usefulness.
July 16, 2025
4.5
Otten has assembled a mighty fine pack of classic werewolf stories. I found the selection of pre-1960 fare, which is most, much more in tune with the Gothic and folkloric flavors of werewolf stories I've come to love. She provides a useful categorical framework for the stories. I hoped for a more granular, insightful commentary on history and themes, however, as she edited the collection, A Lycanthropy Reader: Werewolves in Western Culture. But she elected to summarize the stories instead. My only gripe about an otherwise stellar collection.
Otten has assembled a mighty fine pack of classic werewolf stories. I found the selection of pre-1960 fare, which is most, much more in tune with the Gothic and folkloric flavors of werewolf stories I've come to love. She provides a useful categorical framework for the stories. I hoped for a more granular, insightful commentary on history and themes, however, as she edited the collection, A Lycanthropy Reader: Werewolves in Western Culture. But she elected to summarize the stories instead. My only gripe about an otherwise stellar collection.
October 3, 2016
Good survey of the history and styles of werewolf literature and legend.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews