Best Vampire Short Stories 1800-1849
Annotated

In this International Book Awards anthology finalist, Andrew Barger has unearthed the very best vampire short stories from the first half of the 19th century from long forgotten journals and magazines. 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.

Andrew Barger combed forgotten journals and mysterious texts to collect the very best vintage vampire stories from this crucial period in vampire literature. In doing so, Andrew 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 Black Vampyre is the first vampire story with a black vampire and a vampire of mixed race. Andrew republished it for the first time in over 200 years, bringing this important text back to life.

 

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. As readers have come to expect from Andrew, he has added his scholarly touch to this collection by including story backgrounds, author photos and a foreword titled "With Teeth."

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• 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)

• 2012 List of Vampire Stories Considered - Andrew Barger