These early works by various authors were originally published in the late 19th century and early 20th century and we are now republishing them with a brand new introduction as part of our Cryptofiction Classics series. 'Weird Tales of Weird Tails' contains a collection of short stories about supernatural felines, and includes 'The King of the Cats' by Thomas Lyttelton (1807), 'The Gray Cat' by Barry Pain (1901), 'Ancient Sorceries' by Algernon Blackwood (1908), and many more. Therianthropy – the metamorphosis of humans into animals – is one of literature's oldest themes, and the werecat appears in some form in the folklore of virtually every global culture. African legends are replete with tales of people morphing into lions or leopards; Asian folklore features the often malevolent figure of the weretiger; and in Europe, werecats are found in the writings of Ancient Greece, and were explicitly condemned as heretical creatures during the witch trials of the early Modern period. The Cryptofiction Classics series contains a collection of wonderful stories from some of the greatest authors in the genre, including Ambrose Bierce, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Jack London. From its roots in cryptozoology, this genre features bizarre, fantastical, and often terrifying tales of mythical and legendary creatures. Whether it be giant spiders, werewolves, lake monsters, or dinosaurs, the Cryptofiction Classics series offers a fantastic introduction to the world of weird creatures in fiction.

Even before Bram Stoker immortalized Transylvania as the homeland of his fictional Count Dracula, the figure of the vampire was inextricably tied to Eastern Europe in the popular imagination. Drawing on a wealth of previously neglected sources, this book offers a fascinating account of how vampires—whose various incarnations originally emerged from folk traditions from all over the world—became so strongly identified with Eastern Europe. It demonstrates that the modern conception of the vampire was born in the crucible of the Enlightenment, embodying a mysterious, Eastern otherness that stood opposed to Western rationality. From the Prologue: From Original Sin to Eternal Life For a broad contemporary public, the vampire has become a star, a media sensation from Hollywood. Bestselling authors such as Bram Stoker, Anne Rice and Stephenie Meyer continue to fire the imaginations of young and old alike, and bloodsuckers have achieved immortality through films like Dracula, Interview with a Vampireand Twilight. It is no wonder that, in the teenage bedrooms of our globalized world, vampires even steal the show from Harry Potter. They have long since been assigned individual personalities and treated with sympathy. They may possess superhuman powers, but they are also burdened by their immortality and have to learn to come to terms with their craving for blood. Whereas the Southeast European vampire, discovered in the 1730s, underwent an Americanization and domestication in the media landscape of the twentieth century, the creole zombies that first became known through the cheap novels and horror films of the 1920s still continue to serve as brainless horror figures. Do bloodsuckers really exist and should we really be afraid of the dead? These are the questions that I seek to tackle, following the wishes of my daughter, who was ten when I started this project.

Once a novella bundled in 'Books of Blood' and 'Cabal,' Clive Barker's 'The Last Illusion' appears as a self-contained novel in this annotated edition.

This early work by Rudyard Kipling was originally published in 1892 and we are now republishing it as part of our Cryptofiction Classics series. 'A Matter of Fact' is a short story about three journalists travelling by sea from Cape Town to Southampton who's voyage does not turn out quite as they may have expected. The Cryptofiction Classics series contains a collection of wonderful stories from some of the greatest authors in the genre, including Ambrose Bierce, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Jack London. From its roots in cryptozoology, this genre features bizarre, fantastical, and often terrifying tales of mythical and legendary creatures. Whether it be giant spiders, werewolves, lake monsters, or dinosaurs, the Cryptofiction Classics series offers a fantastic introduction to the world of weird creatures in fiction.