Vintage Vampire Stories Review

Skyhorse Publishing, May 1, 2011
Paperback, 320 pages
ISBN-10: 1616082348
Ordering Information: 

Long lost to the public in out-of-print pulp magazines, dusty Victorian anthologies, and the pages of now defunct newspapers these vintage vampire stories have truly proved immortal. Resurrected now for the year 2011, this is a stunning collection of nineteenth-century vampire stories by heavyweights such as Sabine Baring-Gould and Bram Stoker. 

These 15 rare stories are arranged in chronological order from 1846 to 1913 and are compiled by two of the world’s leading vampire anthologists and experts. Also included are rare images of Bram Stoker’s handwritten manuscript pages for Count Vampire (1890) courtesy of the Rosenbach Museum & Library in Philadelphia.

Now, it took me awhile to finish this book but I'm finally starting to get caught up on my reviews. This book didn't grasp my attention as much as I would have liked. 

I was looking forward to reading other author's interpretations of the vampire pre-Dracula. The way they look. How they feed on human life. Most tales weren't what some have come to known as "traditional". "A Kiss of Judas" written by Julian Osgood Field could easily be the subject of a Supernatural episode. However, this book has a couple of things working against it. Some stories have a rather....long winded feel to them, a lot of telling versus showing. Makes reading them all that more tedious. 

I must add this collection needs some serious editing. There were way too many misspellings to overlook. I spotted some words that didn't fit with the prose such as "clay" instead of "day" and "of" instead of "or". Each tale was accompanied by a short introduction about the author separated from story except in the case of Morley Roberts' "The Blood Fetish". For some reason, the Appendix font is tiny compared to the rest of the book. Not sure why (maybe to save space?).

Vintage Vampire has some interesting versions on this type of monster. However, if this kind of prose is not something you are use to, prepare to fight through it. 

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