5m, 2f / Comedy / Unit set Count Zescu, a Vampire from the old country, takes up residence in the American southwest accompanied only by his coffin and Mattie, who is an all too amorous co-ed he can't seem to lose. Hot on the heels of this colorful entourage is Joyce Lyonhartt, a plucky and determined reporter who excels in disguises to get close to what seems to be a once in lifetime story. The Count settles down in dreary house near a secret army base, and witnesses a bat seemingly explode spontaneously. He stumbles upon a weapons experiment, which involves turning living bats into flying bombs, headed by old foe, Dr. Gunter. An escaped war criminal ironically hiding out in the country whose army is pursuing him, Dr. Gunter continues to wage his private little war, though now aware that his new nemesis may inform on him. On his way to challenging the commander of the Army base, however, the Count discovers he is the uncle of Mattie, and is himself looking to do in the "older man" his niece has run off with. New and old accounts are on their way to being settled during a late night dinner at the Count's estate.

This unique volume features the most terrifying tale from Alexandre Dumas’ The Thousand and One Ghosts and presents the gothic vampire tale as a stand-alone short story that is sure to keep you up at night. The Pale Lady is a gripping vampire tale following Hedwig, a Polish lady, who is sent to a monastery in the Carpathian Mountains for safety. She draws the attention of two very different brothers and soon finds herself in more danger than ever before. A supernatural story featuring creepy castles, misty monasteries, and tragic romance. From the remarkable author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, The Pale Lady has been translated from the original French and is the perfect dark read for fans of horror and the supernatural.

From 18th Century poetry up to modern 3D cinema, the vampire has developed a genre in its own right. Leaving behind its roots in phantasmagoria and horror, taking in romance, action and adventure, as well as flights of science fiction fantasy and political allegory. The vampire is a part of all these fields of artistry and beyond them, a melting pot of imagination and invention that has captivated audiences around the world. In the first part of this volume, Andrew M. Boylan - author of the famous vampire blog Taliesin Meets the Vampires, looks at the genesis of the vampire genre from Ossenfelder's poem Der Vampir to Bram Stoker's seminal novel Dracula. The second part of the book spreads eclectically out from Dracula, just as the genre spread, taking in some famous kissing cousins of the genre as well as looking at the vampire's changing relationship with the divine and following the toothsome bloodsuckers out into space.

This collection of interconnected essays relates the Undead in literature, art and other media to questions concerning gender, race, genre, technology, consumption and social change. A coherent narrative follows Enlightenment studies of the vampire's origins in folklore and folk panics, the sources of vampire fiction, through Romantic incarnations in Byron and Polidori to Le Fanu's Carmilla. Further essays discuss the Undead in the context of Dracula, fin-de-siècle decadence, Nazi Germany and early cinematic treatments. The rise of the sympathetic vampire is charted from Coppola's film, Bram Stoker's Dracula, to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twilight. More recent manifestations in novels, TV, Goth subculture, young adult fiction and cinema are dealt with in discussions of True Blood, The Vampire Diaries and much more. Featuring distinguished contributors, including a prominent novelist, and aimed at interdisciplinary scholars or postgraduate students, it will also appeal to aficionados of creative writing and Undead enthusiasts. www.opengravesopenminds.com

The spellbinding classic that started it all, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author—the inspiration for the hit television series “A magnificent, compulsively readable thriller . . . Rice begins where Bram Stoker and the Hollywood versions leave off and penetrates directly to the true fascination of the myth—the education of the vampire.”—Chicago Tribune Here are the confessions of a vampire. Hypnotic, shocking, and chillingly sensual, this is a novel of mesmerizing beauty and astonishing force—a story of danger and flight, of love and loss, of suspense and resolution, and of the extraordinary power of the senses. It is a novel only Anne Rice could write.

WARNING! Contains moderate bloody violence against slavers and plantation owners!This pioneer vampire tale from 1819 spills revenge-cold blood as its narrator leads us through high gothic terror to radical outrage on the subject of slavery, reaching a blood-soaked conclusion dripping with 'biting' polemic vilifying the bankers who caused the economic recession of that same year.An anti-capitalist horror fable from 200 years ago, The Black Vampyre vilified the worst financial predation the capitalist world would ever see, decades before Karl Marx ― the enslavement of Africans in the New World.One dead man said no! And this is his story.The Black Vampyre; A Legend of St. Domingo tells the affrighting tale of a slave who is resurrected as a vampire after being killed by his owner; the slave seeks revenge by stealing the owner's son and marrying the owner's wife. The anonymous writer D'Arcy sets the story against the conditions that led to the Haitian Revolution.First published in chapbook form in New York in 1819, this emancipatory tale from literary New York in the 1810s arguably dates the birth of horror as know it!This edition features a new introduction as well as extensive notes and a guide to literary allusions.

“Vampires. Why do we care? In these pages you will find what is very simply, the most literate, imaginative, and just plain fascinating answer to that question ever written.” ?Whitley Strieber In a culture that does not do death particularly well, we are obsessed with mortality. Margot Adler writes, “Vampires let us play with death and the issue of mortality. They let us ponder what it would mean to be truly long lived. Would the long view allow us to see the world differently, imagine social structures differently? Would it increase or decrease our reverence for the planet? Vampires allow us to ask questions we usually bury.” As Adler, a longtime NPR correspondent and question asker, sat vigil at her dying husband’s bedside, she found herself newly drawn to vampire novels and their explorations of mortality. Over the next four years—by now she has read more than 270 vampire novels, from teen to adult, from gothic to modern, from detective to comic—she began to see just how each era creates the vampires it needs. Dracula, an Eastern European monster, was the perfect vehicle for 19th-century England’s fear of outsiders and of disease seeping in through its large ports. In 1960s America, Dark Shadows gave us the morally conflicted vampire struggling against his own predatory nature, who still enthralls us today. Think Spike and Angel, Stefan and Damon, Bill and Eric, the Cullens. Vampires Are Us explores the issues of power, politics, morality, identity, and even the fate of the planet that show up in vampire novels today. Perhaps, Adler suggests, our blood is oil, perhaps our prey is the planet. Perhaps vampires are us.