Publisher's Synopsis
Nosferatu. The Undead. Of all the ghastly figures in the literature of horror and the supernatural, none is so dreadful, yet darkly alluring, as the vampire. An unholy creature doomed to wander the earth, neither living nor dead, the vampire lusts for human blood as the only thing which can prolong its horrid twilight existence. This collection of stories from the 19th century is a wonderfully eerie journey into the formative years of vampire fiction and serves as a look into the literary background from which later incarnations of the vampire myth, from Dracula to Lestat, ultimately draw their life's blood. This collection includes stories by Johann Ludwig Tieck, John Polidori, Theophile Gautier, William Gilbert, Sheridan Le Fanu and Julian Hawthorne.