The Vampire Archive

by Otto Penzler

There are vampire stories here by men and women from every literary era of the past century and a half, right up to the most talented writers of the present day

Genres: Horror, Vampires, Short Stories, Fantasy, Anthologies, Fiction, Audiobook

1008 pages, Paperback

First published September 29, 2009

About the author

Otto Penzler is an editor of mystery fiction in the United States, and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, where he lives.

Otto Penzler founded The Mysteriour Press in 1975 and was the publisher of The Armchair Detective, the Edgar-winning quarterly journal devoted to the study of mystery and suspense fiction, for seventeen years.

Penzler has won two Edgar Awards, for The Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection in 1977, and The Lineup in 2010. The Mystery Writers of America awarded him the prestigious Ellery Queen Award in 1994, and the Raven--the group's highest non-writing award--in 2003.

Reviews

[Deborah Markus · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is just what it ought to be -- great, varied, and complete without being boringly exhaustive. It's a good mix of classic and modern writers, each given a brief but informative introduction at the beginning of his or her story.

Some of the stories won't make sense unless you know some legends about vampires that have dropped out of common knowledge. It used to be thought, for instance, that suicide was a direct path to vampirehood.

This collection also has a few stories from an early twentieth-century fad for psychic detectives -- Sherlock Holmes with magical powers. Not great literature, but good clean fun.

Every possible variety of vampire is represented here, and the stories are arranged by category rather than chronologically, which keeps the collection lively.

I read this via audiobook. There are several narrators, all very good and carefully chosen to suit each story -- no American women reading stories told by British men or vice versa.

If you don't already love vampires, this isn't the book that will convert you -- though I dare anyone not to be intrigued and disturbed by Gahan Wilson's "The Sea Was Wet As Wet Could Be," or Mary A. Turzillo's "When Gretchen Was Human." I think my favorite, though, is Tanith Lee's "Bite-Me-Not, or Fleur de Fur."

[Anca Lumei · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed bag of stories.

For reference, this is the list of contents:

Pre-Dracula:
Good Lady Ducayne by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
The Last Lords of Gardonal by William Gilbert
A Mystery of the Campagna by Anne Crawford
The Fate of Madame Cabanel by Eliza Lynn Linton
Let Loose by Mary Cholmondeley
The Vampire by Vasile Alecsandri
The Death of Halpin Frayser by Ambrose Bierce
Ken's Mystery by Julian Hawthorne
Carmilla by Sheridan LeFanu
The Tomb of Sarah by F. G. Loring
Ligeia by Edgar Allan Poe
The Old Portrait and the Vampire Maid by Hume Nisbet

True stories:
The Sad Story of a Vampire by Eric Stanislaus Count Stenbock
A Case of Alleged Vampirism by Luigi Capuana
An Authenticated Vampire Story by Franz Hartman

Graveyards, castles, churches, ruins:
Revelations in Black by Karl Jacoby
The Master of Rampling Gate by Anne Rice
The Vampire of Kaldenstein by Frederick Cowles
An episode of Cathedral History by M. R. James
Schloss Wabenberg by Scott Moncrieff
The Hound by H. P. Lovecraft
Bite-me-not or Fleur de Feu by Tanith Lee
The Horror at Chilham Castle by Joseph Payne Brennan
The Singular Death of Morton by Algernon Henry Blackwood
The Death of Illa Lotha by Clark Ashton Smith

That's poetic:
The Bride of Corinth by Johann Wolfgang van Goethe
Giaur by Lord Byron
La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats

Hard time for vampires:
Place for Meeting by Charles Beaumont
Duty by Ed Gorman
A week in the unlife by David James Shaw

Classic tales:
Four Wooden Stakes by Victor Roman
The room in a tower by E. F. Benson
Mrs Amworth by E. F. Benson
Dr. Porthos by Basil Copper
For the blood is the life by F. Marian Crawford
Count Magnus by M. R. James
When it was moonlight by Manly Wade Wellman
The drifting snow by August Derleth
Aylmer Vance and the Vampire by Alice and Claude Askew
Dracula's Guest by Bram Stocker
The Transfer by Algernon Blackwood
The Stone Chamber by H. B. Marian Watson
The Vampire by Ian Neruda
The end of the story by Clark Ashton Smith

Psychic vampires:
The lovely lady
The parasite by Arthur Conan Doyle
Lonely women are the vessels of time

Something feels funny:
Blood by Frederik Brown
Popsie by Stephen King
The werewolf and the vampire
Drink my red blood
Day blood

Love, forever:
Replacements
Princess of Darkness
The silver collar
The old man's story
Will
Bloodlust
The Canal
When Gretchen was human
The story of Chugaro

They gather:
The men and women of Rivendell
Winter flowers
The man who loved a vampire lady
Midnight mass

Is that a vampire?:
The adventure of the Sussex vampire
A dead finger
Wailing well
Human remains
The vampire
Strigella
Marcius in Flanders
The Horla
The girl with the hungry eyes

This is war:
The living dead
Down among the dead men

Modern masters:
Necros
The man upstairs
Chastelle
Dracula's Chair
Special
Carrion Comfort
The sea was wet as wet could be

[Sharon Barrow Wilfong · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great book to read as the days get colder and the sky gets greyer.

I have read some of the stories in other anthologies, but I also read quite a few new ones. Some were just good old fashioned scary reads, while others were thought provoking and disturbing.

This thick book is filled with a thousand pages of short stories from authors a few centuries back to the 21st century.

I give it four stars because I really cannot stand the modern writers. They have no sense of moral direction and I find a lot of fantasy writers to be mediocre in the craft and that includes their attempts at vampire stories.

But the bulk of this book has some really good creepy plots and characters.

[Takipsilim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having been impressed and much moved by The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps: The Best Crime Stories from the Pulps During Their Golden Age--The '20s, '30s & '40s, I decided to get this book after seeing the same editor and overlooking the tacky and cheap-looking cover. I wasn't too familiar with Vampire fiction other than Dracula and was quite hesitant to purchase and dive straight into such a thick and unfamiliar tome. But as I browsed through, the prose seemed good and the feeling just right, so I decided to fork out the cash.

And fortunately I did. The Vampire Archives: The Most Complete Volume of Vampire Tales Ever Published is perhaps the best anthology of vampire short stories yet. Editor Otto Penzler did the same admirable job with this collection as he did with "The Big Book of Pulps". The omnibus contains stories from the Victorian era to the present and one is witness to all things toothy and bloody from castles and mansions with elegant gardens to cassettes and VCR's. Though the best stories here lack the punch and lingering timelessness of the Pulp anthology, this is a far more consistent book in terms of quality barely marred by duds. Memorable tales like Joseph Payne Brennan's outstanding "The Horror at Chilton Castle", Clark Ashton Smith's flawless "The End of the Story", Frederick Cowles' unsettling "Princess of Darkness", and perhaps the best vampire tale ever written, F. Paul Wilson's "Midnight Mass", make this arguably the best anthology of 2009.

Not only prose is included but verse as well. Fine efforts by literary behemoths like Byron, Goethe, and Keats add an interesting touch to a universal topic.

The only criticism I have on the book is the lengthy and unnecessary 100+ page bibliography at the end. Of importance to researchers but useless to the average reader (the entries don't contain any descriptions of the stories at all) the space taken by the bibliography could have used at least five more stories for the collection. Considering the number of books featured on the list, they certainly could have picked some of the best of those to round up an already rewarding compilation.

If you're a longtime fan of the genre and want to refresh your memory with it or familiarize yourself further with the subject, or if your a newcomer to this particular field, this is one volume that will take proud place in your bookshelf.

[Jason Henderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Outstanding but it's really weird that Penzler leaves out "The Vampyre" because he thinks it's poorly written. It seems like a complete archive should include it anyway.

[MattA · Rating 4 out of 5]

Too massive to read in a single check-out from the library, I skipped large portions of the book. As it's an anthology, it's difficult to assign one overall rating. Some of the stories are five-stars, others are barely two. So I give the tome four stars as a nod to it's exhaustive scope. If you're a true and total fan of everything vampire, go ahead and plow through it. Otherwise, just pick and choose.

The first section of the anthology contains the older, "pre-Dracula" vampire stories which I found to be a bit repetitive. They all seemed to follow the same pattern of a long buildup to a climactic reveal that, yes, the antagonist is a vampire(!). Since we know from the cover that these are all stories about vampires, those reveals come across as less dramatic than they might if you had found the stories outside this anthology. The later entires generally assume you know these characters are vampires and rely on other devices to build their stories. I found these later offerings to be much better reading.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fun book.

My copy is audio so I don't have the problems others have mentioned,

I am reading it slowly, savoring each tale. The introduction to each story sets it in place in literature. It'a going to last a long time!

It's over 63 hour!

[Meredith]

This is one massive tome. Unfortunately, the paper quality is truly horrible, and neither it nor the binding were built to last. It's puzzling why so much trouble was gone through to put together a stellar collection if it wasn't built to last.

Is this anthology "the most complete volume of vampire tales ever published" as the subtitled claims? Quite possibly. The obligatory excerpt from Varney the Vampire and the short story that began it all "The Vampyre" by Polidori are glaring omissions, but a lot of harder to find pieces are included. The selection of early vampire stories is very good. Most of the modern vampire stories date from the 1970's and 1980's.

The arrangement is a bit odd. It's divided up into: Pre-Dracula, True Stories, Graveyards Castles Churches Ruins, That's Poetic, Hard Times for Vampires, Classic Tales, Psychic Vampires, Something Feels Funny, Love . . . Forever, They Gather, Is That a Vampire?, This Is War, and Modern Masters. Three stories published after Dracula are included in the pre-Dracula section that should be in the Classic Tales section, and several other stories that are pre-Dracula/pre-1897 are scattered throughout the other sections. Also, the title of the True Stories section is misleading as it contains three fictional stories rather than actual accounts of vampires. Reading some of the newspaper accounts from 18th Century Eastern Europe or New England or even more modern incidents at Highgate Cemetery would have been fun.

The bibliography included at the end is excellent for vampire novels contemporary within the last decade with a sprinkling of older works included as well.

[Jack Keely · Rating 4 out of 5]

At over nine hundred pages, this weighty tome has given me some physical as well as mental exercise. I received THE VAMPIRE ARCHIVES as a birthday present. Since I am more of a novel kind of guy, a book of short stories that was literally as thick as a brick wasn’t exactly what I would have chosen. But once I started nibbling away at it, I found plenty to enjoy. This book is not all suave bloodsuckers in capes and evening dress (although you will find some). Lisa Tuttle’s ‘The Replacements’ is about creepy little vampiric animals that exert a strange allure. The story by Sabine Baring-Gould called ‘A Dead Finger’ is about… well, you guessed it. Many of the stories are old and more than a little creaky which I quite enjoy. There are more recent tales including some by contemporary masters such as Stephen King and Anne Rice. I revisited some old favorites like ‘Carmilla’, and made a few new finds like ‘Popsy’. In fact, I think I will drag the thing back to my coffin and bite down on another one right now.

[Lisa Wolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

This 1000+ page book is a treasure trove of vampire lore, with an incredibly rich array of vampire stories spanning the ages from classic to modern. Stories by Bram Stoker and Arthur Conan Doyle are included, as well as Roger Zelazny, Stephen King, Anne Rice, and Clive Barker. The bibiography alone is worth the price of the book. This 30-something page guide to all written vampire works is a masterpiece, and is pure entertainment in and of itself. A must-have for all lovers of the vampire fiction genre.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Checked this book out in order to read “Carmilla” by Sheridan Le Fanu for November bookclub and ended up reading 99% of the remaining stories. I had no idea of the depth or scope of vampire tales, and this collection is still fairly limited and doesn’t include all the worldwide variations. It’s a wonderful selection of primarily European and American vampire tales. The Foreword discusses the influence of the 1871 “Carmilla” on Bram Stoker’s Dracula and other vampire stories. It describes the history of numerous vampire stories and their adaptions to movies and other media. The Preface by Neil Gaiman made me laugh – don’t read it unless your sense of humor is dark, twisted and you appreciate Stephen King. Otto Penzler’s Introduction sums it up well, “Trying to understand the myth of vampirism is like trying to understand the concept of God. All depends upon the culture, the era, and even an individual’s imagination and gullibility, or faith.” I learned that in Jewish legend, Lilith, Adam’s first wife, “sucked the blood of men and attacked infants, turning them into Lilam, or children of Lilith, who then grew to feast on blood as well. This myth lasted into the Middle Ages.” And in ancient Greece, “vampires were the children of Hecate: beautiful women who seduced and drained the blood of innocents . . . they had the power to transform themselves into various kinds of animals . . . [and could] attack during daylight hours as well as at night.” The most surprising thing I learned was how much more common female vampires were in earlier stories than male vampires.

The stories are divided into sections such as Pre-Dracula, Graveyards/Castles/Churches/Ruins, Classic Tales, Psychic Vampires, Love, War and Modern Masters. As usual I loved the oldest, most Gothic styled tales and didn’t even finish reading the modern versions.

Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu was a surprising story on many levels – great Gothic atmosphere with a lesbian love story twist. There are some intriguing aspects, including a mountebank who sells them both a charm to ward off vampires, which the vampire cheerfully pins on herself.

I also enjoyed The Master of Rampling Gate by Anne Rice, which ended with an interesting twist. Again a female vampire dominated the story.

And over 100 years later Brian Stableford paid homage to Le Fanu by bringing Carmilla back for his tale, The Man Who Loved the Vampire Lady, which begins with this lovely quote, “A man who loves a vampire lady may not die young, but cannot live forever.” Walachian proverb.

Favorite quotes:
The Death of Halpin Fraserby Ambrose Bierce
“He thought he was walking along a dusty road that showed white in the gathering darkness of a summer night. Whence and whither it led, and why he traveled it, he did not know, though all seemed simple and natural, as is the way in dreams: for in the Land Beyond the Bed surprises cease from troubling and the judgment is at rest.”

Bite-Me-Not or Fleur de Fur by Tanith Lee
“There comes a time . . . when they are together, these two creatures. Not together in any accepted sense, of course, but together in the strange feeling or emotion, instinct or ritual, that can burst to life in an instant or flow to life gradually across half a century, and which men call Love.”

And remember, according to Bram Stoker in Dracula’s Guest, “The dead travel fast.”

“Why, I have the heart of a small boy,” he said. "It’s in a jar, on my desk.” Robert Bloch when asked if he was a macabre writer.

[Peter Longworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent collection of short vampire stories. Over the last three years I've really embraced the short story medium in a big way. Editor / compiler Otto Penzler has done an excellent job in this compilation of vampire stories. A word of warning, make sure you get the English edition with the full page text, the paper is much better, too

[Ed King · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are more vampires than you can shake a stake at in this collection. Another great anthology from Otto Penzler.

[Laurence · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a strange quirk of science that it has been found that the injection of young blood into an old person actually has restorative qualities. My understanding is that as we age the capability of DNA (or was it RNA) replication diminishes and the strands become shorter, so the effect of rejuvenation of new cells reduces over time - hence aging appearance. Regular transfusion of younger blood cells actually improves the appearance of older people. Countess Bathory and Vampire myths really were on to something?

Back to the book.

This collection is a massive, weighty tome, appropriate to start on Friday the 13th. Kim Newman's introduction (4/5) traces the history of vampire literature and how modern perception has comingled with the cinema interpretations and lineage of those stories. Neil Gaiman's foreword (5/5) is a brief autobiographical history of his relationship with vampires from a young age, I especially noted his dissatisfaction with the movie interpretations of these great stories as they couldn't live up to his imagination, something I'd agree with of the Hammer vampire movies of the 70s. They're trying but generally failing. Gaiman also mentioned that it was his disappointment in some of these stories that led him to construct his own.

As an anthology it does collect many of the big names both old and new (newish). It meant that I'd already read several of these. My favourites evoke folk tale style or up to the late gothic era.

The stories I liked:

Good Lady Ducayne by Mary Elizabeth Braddon: 3/5
This new lady's maid has found employment that appears to be too good to be true, but what might it cost her?

The Last Lords of Gardonal by William Gilbert: 3/5
Refreshingly the vampire isn't actually the most evil character in this story.

Carmilla by Sheridan LeFanu 5/5
Didn't reread here, I read this recently.

Ligeia by Edgar Allan Poe 5/5
Reread, this remains my favourite Poe story.

The Old Portrait by Hume Nisbert: 3.5/5
Extremely short but fairly effective actually. A man buys a painting because he likes the frame, when removing the old paint what does he find beneath?

The Vampire Maid by Hume Nisbet : 4/5
This ethereal vampire story quickly delivers. The classic trope of the young man enchanted by the seemingly innocent beauty.

The Vampire of Kaldenstein by Frederick Cowles: 4/5
Solid if familiar story almost like a truncated Dracula, without leaving the old country.

Schloss Wabenberg by D Scott-Moncrieff: 3.5/5
I like the trope. Just like the Vampire of Kaldenstein and several others. The traveller in Central-eastern Europe somehow encounters the aristocratic vampires in their dilapidated castle. Unfortunately the protagonists (I think often if not always) seem to escape with generally unsatisfying ease.
In this one the events apparently happened in a collected projected dream as a visit to the castle afterwards in the daylight finds the dining room covered in undisturbed dust. None the less our heroes' escape the town post haste.

The Hound by H. P. Lovecraft: 4/5
Reread.

Bite-me-not or Fleur de Feu by Tanith Lee: 4/5
Tanith Lee's writing style is perfect for folk tales, I plan to read more of her work. This is a rather straight forward story but is well crafted.


The Horror at Chilton Castle by Joseph Payne Brennan: 3.5/5
A terrifying occupant inhabitants a secret room in the castle.

The Singular Death of Morton by Algernon Henry Blackwood: 3.5/5
For a very short story this builds an ominous atmosphere quickly. Simple but effective.

The Death of Illa Lotha by Clark Ashton Smith: 4/5
Great writing, I'd have liked a little more depth but for a very short story this is very effective.

The room in a tower by E. F. Benson: 4/5
Very Lovecraftian. A man dreams a house in subsequent nights in ever more detail. He ignores this until he happens coincidentally to arrive at the actual house. How strange that the horrific people in the dream bear no resemblance to the actual people living in the house. Until, he stays the night in the room in the tower.


The end of the story by Clark Ashton Smith: 3.5/5
This story appears to have a very long winded build up, everything of interest (mostly the meeting with Lamia) is stacked to the end of the story.

Replacements by Lisa Tuttle 3.5/5:
A bit of a stretch calling it a vampire story, but this story suggests that women want to nurture a small cute thing long term, and men just want youthful women who are in good shape and don't challenge their dominance (more or less).

Princess of Darkness by Frederick Cowles: 3.5/5
He can not escape the vampire's curse, he might evade for a while, but when his guard is finally dropped, he is her's. Mysterious eastern European location, unnaturally beautiful vampiress. No happy ending here.

The Old Man's Story by Walter Starkie: 3.5/5
Pour one out (wine) for the peasant girl who ran away with the vampire.


The Canal by Everill Worrell: 3.5/5
I think this is the non Derleth butchered version as there is no dynamite in the quarry, no instead our hapless hero plans to take a wooden sword and presumably to attempt to plunge it into the vampiress' heart. I think we all know he will fail. And that is such an appropriate way to end. I'll need to read more Everill Worrell.

Necros by Brian Lumley: 5/5
Read this recently.

[aistė aidur · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is amazing and I would highly recommend, especially for the sci-fi ones. Well worth the time.

[Lise Quintana · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to give a single rating to an anthology of 85 stories spanning about 200 years of vampire writing. Some of the stories, like The Room in the Tower, by E. F. Benson, are wonderfully non-typical takes on the vampire legend. Others, most especially the notably large number of stories whose introductions state that the authors were friends of Lovecraft, supporters of Lovecraft, etc., were disturbing for other reasons. The role of women in vampire stories is disheartening, and most of Lovecraft's followers seem to have some very basic problems with women.

I find it ironic that there was a conscious decision not to include John Polidori's "The Vampyre," supposedly the first vampire story written on the same weekend as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, on the grounds that it was not high enough quality to merit publication. And yet, Clark Ashton Smith's "The Death of Ilalotha" is included, despite the fact that it would give "The Eye of Argon" a run for its money in terms of sheer campy horribleness. There were some several inclusions where the prose was clunky, the story tired, and yet because the author was a friend of Lovecraft, it somehow merited a place in the anthology. Disheartening. There were also a couple, including "Midnight Mass" by F. Paul Wilson, whose payoff didn't warrant their extraordinary length.

The stories are grouped loosely by type - pre-Dracula stories, psychic vampire stories, humor (including R. Chetwynd-Hayes funny and moving story "The Werewolf and the Vampire"), etc. If you're looking for some spooky reading to while away the lengthening October evenings while you're preparing your crypt for Halloween, you could do worse than this collection.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some fun stories in this collection, some of which have been very hard to track down due to reprint rarities. I was very happy to find some old pulp authors I love like Carl Jacobi and Fredric Brown and Manley Wade Wellman herein.

Still, for writers of horror or dark fantasy, the greatest strength of this book could be its 111 page bibliography of every published vampire fiction short story or novel or collection. It does note that the bibliography doesn't include comic books, games, television, plays, or movies (which is a fair decision for a book on vampire tales, not total media). Even so, it's a great resource that's made me start hunting down a copy once this one goes back to the library.

[Jazzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy this book, I still pick it up once in a while and read some stories. Some stories go on for pages upon pages and it's too much to handle.. However, I love short stories... so it's perfect. Some stories are over 5 stars worth, some are barely 2 stars worth. I wouldn't say it's the best collection ever, but it's definitely worth owning.

[Lady of the Lake · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories in this anthology
Rate between 2 and 4 stars so overall I will rate the book at 3 stars. It's definitely a book to come and go with... It wasn't one I wanted to go from one story to the next all in a row... So if you do read this plan on doing so in starts and stops as the mood strikes you. You will like it much better that way!

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

i've only read 2 or 3 exerts from the book and so far i think it's a really neat idea. if u love all things vampires this is a great book just for the bibliography at the back....it's enormous. checked it out at the library just for fun which is exactly what it has been

[Tamara Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great compilation of vampire stories ranging from classic stories published in the 1800's to the present day. I also liked the exhaustive bibliography provided at the end of the book as well as the combination of short stories, longer stories and even vampire poetry.

[Francelia Belton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some stories were really good, some not so much. But I'm glad I stuck it out. It was an interesting listen and I was introduced to some new authors and learned more about some I thought knew. It was worth my time.

[Nadia]

Good Lady Ducayne by M. E. Braddon
The Man Upstairs by Ray Bradbury
A Case of Alleged Vampirism by Luigi Capuana
The Last Lords of Gardonal by William Gilbert

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read a few short stories in this anthology but did not have time to read as much as I would have liked, especially since I had to return it to the library after a few weeks.

[Wayne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Huge comp of bad and good short stories related to vampires. Missing some classics like I am Legend but pretty darn complete!

[BlueRoses · Rating 2 out of 5]

Simply put: There are way too many modern stories in here for this to be considered an "Archive". It doesn't even include Polidori's "The Vampyre".

[Kirsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great collection of vampire stories, some are better than others but there's something in this book for every fan of the genre.

[Yegor Voronin · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Vampire Archives" is a deeply impressive collection that succeeds wonderfully in its primary goal: to give the reader a comprehensive taste of the vampire story's evolution. Its value lies in showcasing the sheer range of tales the myth has inspired over the years and in introducing a wide array of authors who have tackled the theme. While the quality of the stories is understandably uneven, the anthology works perfectly as a guided tour through the genre. My only minor quibble is that including multiple stories from some authors felt unnecessary; that space could have been used to further broaden the diversity of voices. Overall, however, it's an excellent and highly recommended collection for anyone interested in the genre's history and breadth.

Here is a summary of the stories I read:

The Highlights (Excellent Reads)
"The Master of Rampling Gate" by Anne Rice: An excellent, romantic, and character-driven gothic tale. The best I read in the collection.

"The Man Upstairs" by Ray Bradbury: Read it before, but Bradbury is the master of atmospheric story with kids as the main characters.

"Replacements" by Lisa Tuttle: Weird, moody, and dark in the best way. A fantastic tale of psychological horror that doesn't give away too much.

"The Girl with the Hungry Eyes" by Fritz Leiber: A brilliant, cynical story about a psychic vampire that has aged incredibly well, feeling even more relevant in our modern media-dominated world.

"Drink My Red Blood" by Richard Matheson: A very moody, weird, and well-written psychological story about the idea of being a vampire.

"The Men & Women of Rivendale" by Steve Rasnic Tem: A very unusual and interesting story with a weird setting and motivations that somehow just works.

The Good & Interesting
"Good Lady Ducayne" by M. E. Braddon: A nice, easy read with a surprisingly happy ending for a vampire story.

"Revelations in Black" by Carl Jacobi: I really liked the moody storytelling in this one.

"An Episode of Cathedral History" by M. R. James: Dated, but still effectively creepy.

"The Transfer" by Algernon Blackwood: A great example of suggestive horror that builds dread without over-explaining.

"The Man Who Loved the Vampire Lady" by Brian Stableford: A solid "alternative history" with a scientific take on a vampire ruling class.

"Human Remains" by Clive Barker: A very interesting and unusual story with novel twists that subvert expectations.

"Blood" by Fredric Brown: A cute, short story with a good surprise ending. Not high literature, but effective.

The Mixed Bag (Good Ideas, Flawed Execution)
"The Parasite" by Arthur Conan Doyle: An engaging psychological battle, but the ending is disappointingly abrupt and anticlimactic.

"Popsy" by Stephen King: A definite page-turner with an interesting main character, but a bit too action-heavy and predictable for my taste.

"Winter Flowers" by Tanith Lee: A solid, moody, and dark story, though the characters' motivations felt underdeveloped.

"Down Among the Dead Men" by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois: An excellent concept and setting, but the story just didn't click for me and left me unsatisfied.

The Disappointments
"The Death of Halpin Frayser" by Ambrose Bierce: The style was difficult to read and I found the story hard to follow.

"The Tomb of Sarah" by F. G. Loring: Very cliché with unengaging writing.

"Ligeia" by Edgar Allan Poe: While I usually like Poe, this story wasn't very interesting to me.

"The Sad Story of a Vampire" by Count Stenbock: Just a bad story with poor writing.

"The End of the Story" by Clark Ashton Smith: A collection of tired tropes that hasn't aged well and is not well-written.

"The Living Dead" by Robert Bloch: An interesting setup, but a very predictable ending.

[Max · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes, the other Penzler edited anthology I've read, I'm not going to try to review every single story in here. There are dozens and that would take forever, and given I read this on and off for over a year, I'm sure I've forgotten how I felt about a lot of them. Instead, I'm going to talk a bit about how I felt about this book as a whole. Overall, it's a fairly good collection, though I think it could be improved in some ways. There were certainly times reading this when I felt like it had gotten somewhat monotonous, with too many stories of vampires as monsters and not enough with sympathetic ones. Yes, vampires started out as figures of horror, but there's a number of different viewpoints about them now, and even vampire protagonists can still star in horror tales where they face evil vampires or other monsters. I also felt annoyed that Polidori's The Vampire isn't included here. Penzler says that's because he doesn't think it's very good, which is obviously fine as far as that goes, but I feel that anything purporting to be "the most complete volume of vampire tales every published" (as the cover declares) should include the foundational vampire story. And there was definitely a fair number of stories I didn't much care for, either finding them stupid or too long or just bad.

But there are also some very good stories here, and some important ones. Carmilla is reprinted, which is always nice, and there's a good array of other early vampire tales, some of which I hadn't read. Dracula's Guest appears, but personally I'd find the first four chapters of Dracula to be a much better choice. A number of classic and modern horror authors are represented, reminding me that I need to check out more MR James and Clark Ashton Smith. There's even a pretty good story by Anne Rice, one of her rare forays into short fiction, which I actually wish was fleshed out more since unlike Interview with a Vampire it stars a woman. There's a masterful story by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois about a Jewish vampire during the Holocaust, and the man who writes the Repairman Jack novels has a really good story about a Catholic priest and a Jewish rabbi resisting a vampire conquest of Earth. (This last one was expanded into a full novel which I plan to read soon.) Given the length of the book and the high quality of the good stories, I think they will far outlive the terrible ones in my memory, which is the way I really judge an anthology.

I will say that, as with the Sherlock Holmes book, I found this a bit awkward to read, especially now that I'm doing much of my reading on the bus, an environment a tome of this size is totally unsuited for. So while there are more volumes like this by Penzler that look good, I'm not sure I'm likely to read any of them anytime soon, especially when they don't have ebook editions. Still if you want an almost overwhelming array of blood suckers, soul drinkers, and even some maybe-vamps, definitely give this a whirl. Just think of it as an excellent starting point, not the be-all and end-all of my favorite undead.

[Luke Bishop · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent collection of short stories involving vampires that manages to keep the concept engaging through. An impressive variety of permutations of the vampire story are contained herein, often making use of familiar elements such as crosses, garlic, and stakes, but in other places taking the monster in new directions. Almost every story was enjoyable and at least decent, while most were at least good, if not very good.

Particular highlights:

"Carmilla": J. Sheridan Le Fanu's pre-Dracula novella that was an influence on the later work.

"Revelations in Black": Not necessarily unique in story, but the prose elevates the story into a memorable one.

Both of Tanith Lee's stories- "Bite-Me-Not" and "Winter Flowers," but particularly the former for its fairytale-esque style.

"The Horror at Chilton Castle" by Joseph Payne Brennan. Not really particular vampiric, but still effective and chilling.

"The Room in the Tower" by E. F. Benson. Interesting use of dreams as a story device, with a memorable opening couple of paragraphs.

"The Werewolf and the Vampire": A more satirical story that still hits emotional notes, while being an effective dramatic piece.

"The Princess of Darkness" by Frederick Cowles. Routine at first, until the story takes a sharp, unforeseen turn for the ending.

"Midnight Mass" by F. Paul Wilson. The single best story in the collection. An effective tale of a Catholic priest and Jewish rabbi trying to save the former's parish and congregation from vampires.

"Stragella" by Hugh B. Cave. Perhaps the second-best story in the book. Moody and atmospheric, with interesting effective uses and changes to the vampire myth.

"Chastel" by Manly Wade Wellman. A blending of genuine New England history and folklore with the classic character of the occult/psychic detective.

"The Sea Was Wet As Could Be" by Gahan Wilson. An unsettling spin on a poem by Lewis Carroll