Customer Reviews

Dracula's Guest: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Vampire Stories

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ahh, vampires! Seriously, who doesn't love them? They have this alluring sensuality to them. Either that or they're down-right vicious. Needless to say, that the vampire has undergone a transformation as of late. They are no longer that alluring (to me anyway) and definitely not vicious. Not only have the Twilight books skewed the vision of the brutal and vicious vampire, it has made them sparkle. This is atrocious. Vampires aren't supposed to sparkle! They're supposed to kill you or turn you. Not walk along professing their "love" for a mortal. (Although, Edward was controlling as old-fashioned vampires are, so there's that). It's not only the Twilight series which has changed the vampire. Buffy (as much as I loved the show), took the award for the most angsty vampire with Angel. Whoever heard of a vampire with a soul before that? Then, they go and give awesomely vicious and brutal Spike a soul, too! Gah! But I'm happy to say that Dracula's Guest takes us back to the glory days where vampires were evil, not pretty boys with angst to rival that of teenage girls.

So, okay, these vampires aren't like those vampires in the film 30 Days of Night (weren't those vampires just scary as all hell?), but they're still pretty creepy. Dracula's Guest is an anthology of classic, victorian, vampire stories. Granted, I haven't read every single story, yet (I like to dip into short stories rather than read them in one go), but I've read more than half of them and most of them are pretty damn great. At first I thought I'd have trouble reading these stories since they are classics and those are sometimes pretty dry, but they ended up being page-turners. So much that I ended up reading way into the night without realizing it and then had to watch Andy Richter Controls the Universe to get vampire thoughts out of my head (which didn't really work considering that as soon as I was drifting off, my smoke alarm went off, for no apparent reason, and I jumped up and looked out the window to make sure there wasn't a creepy, pallid, face peering into mine. There wasn't, FYI).

I have to say that my favorites (so far) have to be The Family of Vourdalak by Alexsei Tolstoy and Wake Not the Dead by Johann Ludwig Tieck. The first just has the creepiest vampire who would look into his family's windows with a, you guessed it, creepy, pallid, face. Wake Not the Dead had the most vicious, manipulative, and FEMALE vampire. Add in numerous people telling the douche-bag husband "wake not the dead" and you have a story that's all types of win. Plus, there are numerous "true stories" that just really make the anthology not only scary, but interesting because you get to see what vampire customs (the garlic, the whole "they must be welcomed in" theory, etc.) started where or how they started.

So, again, while I haven't finished every single story in Dracula's Guest, the good ones seem to outweight the clunkers from what I have read. And I for one rejoice in the return of the viciousness of vampires. The angsty ones can just take a hike and take there melodramatic and pathetic girlfriends with them.

Edited to add that I actually finished the whole anthology today (a mere day after submitting my partial review; so much for dipping into it occasionally) and while I liked the first half better than the second half, I still think that the four star rating should stand. The stories that I thought were particular gems were What Was It? (Though not really a vampire story, I just thought it was weird and bizzare), Good Lady Ducayne (while not scary at all, it really was interesting and I liked that there were parallels between this story and the Elizabeth Bathory history), and And the Creature Came In (I don't know what it is with vampires and windows, but I don't think I'll ever look out the window with a sense of comfort ever again). I didn't really find any stories that I clicked with in Part III, but I think that's because there were only four of them while there were more in the previous parts. But still really great anthology and I have no doubt that I'll re-read my favorites when Halloween rolls around.

Dracula's Guest, edited by Michael Sims, contains a wonderful collection of vampire stories mostly from the Victorian Era. Dracula's Guest includes some well known stories as well as some not so well known stories. Historical information is included throughout the book on the various authors, the time periods and what led people to believe in vampires.
The book is broken down into 3 parts: The Roots, The Tree and The Fruit.
Beginning with The Roots, Sims includes authors such as Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens, Antoine Augustin Calmet, George Gordon, Lord Byron, John Polidori, Theophile Gautier and a story attributed to Johann Ludwig Tieck. In the second part, The Tree, authors included are Aleksei Tolstoy, James Malcolm Rymey, Fitz-James O'Brien, Anne Crawford, Emily Gerard, Mary Cholmondeley, Eris, Count Stenbock, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Augustus Hare, F.G. Loring, Hume Nisbet and one story whose author is unknown. The third and final part, The Fruit, includes authors Mary E Wilkins Freeman, M.R.James, Alice and Claude Askew, and Bram Stoker. Michael Sims introduces the book with a story of what led to his ideas for this book.
Sims concludes Dracula's Guest with a listing of bibliography and a detailed list of suggested further readings.
The stories included are for the most part very interesting with the majority of them being very short (as in fewer than 20 pages or so). Sims did a wonderful job of gathering historical information about the authors and presenting it in a way that was not the usual drab or boring manner. I definitely recommend Dracula's Guest to anyone interested in learning more about the progression of vampire stories or those who just love vampires. I found Dracula's Guest to be very informative, interesting and a book that I will re-read again over time.
I won this book in the Goodreads first reads contest.

I haven't read a lot of vampire stories. My favorite so far has been Dracula. I like my monsters to be repulsive and irredeemable, not sparkly and angsty. That being said, this book is full of tales with creatures just the way I like them.
I love the introduction to the book, which explains the author's theories, attraction and motivation to collect stories which were written during the 1800s about vampires. He has a neat, dry sense of humor and a nice way with words. I also enjoyed the introductions to the various authors and the times they lived in. They set the tone for the story which followed.
As for the stories themselves, Sims begins with the weaker ones, and builds up to the finest near the end of the book. Because of the introductions, they all have interest, and the finer ones are riveting. Sadly, Stoker's own tale, "Dracula's Guest," belonged somewhere in the middle, not the end. I'm sure he had that honor simply because of his fame.
I enjoyed this book more than I would have thought possible, and recommend it to anyone who enjoys having their flesh crawl on a moonlit, foggy night while they sit by a cozy fire.

It took me forever to read this book. I kept putting it down and not really wanting to pick it back up. I found almost all the stories entirely dull, owing much to the inordinate amount of time the various authors spent on exposition and description. One describes the house and grounds of the setting in minute detail, completely unnecessary as the action of the piece takes place in one mere room of the home. Another spends almost an entire page explaining why the narrator describes in English as opposed to French. In a story of less than 40 pages, that's a great percentage of the allotted pages.
I did enjoy that the editor has devoted some pages prior to the tales to introduce each of our authors. I found these more interesting at times than the fictional tales that follow.
However, I would recommend this collection to every Twilight fan out there in the hopes that they might learn some new words.

Michael Sims' collection of vampire tales spans a wide range of authors and styles. He begins by setting the table, so to speak, with a helping of preVictorian tales and even some "factual" accounts of vampire activities reported by various individuals. The second section of the book contains tales from the Victorian era and the last section, tales from the years just following the Victorian era when the Victorian influence was still strong.

There were very few tales included in this collection that I did not like and even those I appreciated for their fit within the collection. Sims provides an excellent preface to each tale, providing us with a historical picture of the author and what made them or their tale important.

Overall, this collection is a fascinating exploration of the origins of the vampire in modern literature and should appeal to a wide array of readers from fans of vampire fiction to fans of Victorian literature to short story readers to history buffs.

If horror is your genre you should take the time to read this surprisingly satisfying collection of Victorian era historian vampire stories, Dracula's Guest. If you thought that Bram Stoker's Dracula stood alone in its era, you will soon discover this is far from the case, although in tribute to his significance the collection's penultimate tale is the eponymous Stoker short story, published posthumously, that could only have been an early draft of his later novel that catapulted the vampire theme to the centrality it occupies in the horror genre to this very day.
What this collection pleasantly reveals is a wide range of 19th century tales that focus upon various aspects of this theme, including the undead, the walking dead, the reluctant dead and the periphery of blood, graves, religious talismans and the like. Despite the styles of writing typical of the period, most of the stories are remarkably accessible for the modern reader and for the horror fan it is a real pleasure to uncover the roots of so much of the window-dressings of modern horror novels.
Like all collections, the stories vary and some are much, much better than others. This is especially true in this kind of compendium, where the editor is obviously attempting to be comprehensive in terms of genre content, rather than just serving to entertain. For my part, my favorite stories were "Wake Not the Dead" by the little known Johann Ludwig Tieck circa 1823, and "The Deathly Lover" by the much more famous Theophile Gautier circa 1843, and the later tale "Luella Miller" by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman circa 1902. If you are a Stephen King or Ann Rice junkie, or addicted to "Twilight" or "True Blood," you owe it to yourself to go back in time to the dawn of vampire horror and read this collection.

This is a connoisseur's collection of vampire stories, and what a toothsome collection it is! Many of the early entries into the gendre of vampire stories define and confine the vampire lore of today. This is rare cognac among cheap beer.
Although many different accounts and views of vampires are written about today, ranging from "The Historian" to the Twilight romance series to the children's fantasy, "The Little Vampire", they all come and evolve from the first century of these Victorian vampire tales.
An interesting introduction discusses the vampire stories and mythos, and each story is preceeded by a biography or speculation about the author of the story. Both give a background and emphasis of the story's importance to the genre.
This is also an excellent rainy day read, or even better, for a January's stormy night in front of the fire with the lights off.
Highly recommended for those interested in vampire stories and dark atmosphere tales.
(Review first listed in [...])

Michael Sims owns the stories of the Victorian era as he proved in his Gaslight mysteries. Now Sims proves the science behind vampires and their role in literary cultural and romantic terms. We loved this book. Sims is the best.

Loved it. And I'm not a vampire fan. Nor do I read gothic novels much at all. But I love how this collection not only tells the reader, but shows how the literary vampire came into being. An eye opener for those of us who thought Dracula rose, fully formed, solely from Stoker's pen. I'm a history buff as well as an avid fiction reader, and this collection combines history, biography, and gothic fiction into one well orchestrated collection.

Starting with early historical accounts of vampire-like events and taking the reader through the early formative literature that led to the work of M.R. James and Bram Stoker, this collection tells the story of this literary evolution almost without a glitch. More than once, you'll find yourself saying "so that's where that came from!".

Two stories that I really loved - "Good Lady Ducayne" and "Louella Miller". The voice in "Louella Miller" is nothing like what you expect from such tales, and the story telling is near perfect.

Loved it (did I already mention that?)

Review abased on ARC.

This is an excellent introduction/compendium of victorian (as well as some pre-victorian and post-victorian) vampire stories.

Michael Sims does a superb job of not only gathering some of the most noteworthy and influential pieces of the genre, but he introduces the work as a whole and each piece with aplomb.

I typically do not read the introduction to a book until after I've read the book (and only then if I feel that it's "worth my time"). I know that this is counter-intuitive, but generally I want to read the work without someone else's opinion about the work first. (I typically do not read reviews until after I've read the book either.)

In this case, however, I read the introduction as it was meant to be read -- first. What a wonderful introduction. I have dog-earred many pages (I know, gasp!) in the intro for me to follow up on and read more about the topic. I also note that Sims explains his choices effectively and intriguingly. I could not wait to get started.

The stories themselves are wonderful. They represent true vampire culture and fears in the earlier times and we are able to see the morphing of the culture of vampire lore.

All in all, excellent choices and excellent work.

I would not recommend this book to people who think that Twilight is the end-all of vampire tales. But for those of you who are interested in the backdrop of current lore, the history, the progression, and are willing to take the time and energy to read victorian style prose... by all means, sink your teeth in...