Okay…vampyres. A subject done to death…no pun intended. Today, vampyre themes in stories, films, cartoons, breakfast cereal (come on!!)…what have you…are so commonplace that it borders on the ludicrous, the ridiculous. Even my own mind cries out - "Uh oh! Another vampyre storyline! Sheeesh! When will it ever end!" Still, there are some good vampy stories out there.

Now, when I say "good" - of course I am referring to the "older" generation of stories. The classics. You know, those written a "LONG" time ago! I must be fair & say that some of the more contemporary, albeit, modern, stories are all right, but none the less, I prefer the classics. No disrespect to those who write vampyre stories today, but…you know what I mean. (NOTE: There are some excellent contemporary vampyre stories - eg., Niel Straum’s nifty little Vanishing Breed & J N Williamson’s series of novels about a 2000 year old female Greek vampyre named "Lamia").

So, with my penchant for "classic horror stories", what I have here is a list of links to some "classic" literature with vampyric themes. I must admit that some of these links do "border" on the vampyric theme. Yet, they do tend to reflect vampyrism in some way. Included in this list of links are stories as well as poetry. Some are links to actual sites while a few, such as Bram Stoker's "Dracula's Guest" and Edgar Allan Poe's "Morella", are pages that I built myself, these stories being in Public Domain, thus, no copyright infringement.

I plan to expand this list as time goes on to include others as I come across them. As noted above, the majority of these stories, if not all, ARE classic in nature. I have elected to exclude (for now) any recent popular literature using the vampyre theme. This is not because popular literature (contemporary?) is not good as such, for there are some excellent examples of popular literature with a vampyric theme (re: Williamson & Straum mentioned above, etc). I have elected to concentrate on vampyric literature that is "classical" in nature simply because I favorite it. Of course, I am sure there are those of you that claim to have lived during the time some of these stories were written! Flexing your fangs are you?

I might add here that I have long been a fan of Joseph Sheridan LeFanu’s Carmilla. Having seen just about all the films based on the Carmilla theme (four of them), I have yet to see anything do justice to LeFanu’s original storyline. Thus, in an attempt to DO JUSTICE to LeFanu’s original storyline, I took it upon myself to write a screenplay adaptation of Carmilla which, incidentally, won 5th place in a national screen writing competition. Alas, due to the number of rejection letters I’ve gotten, it is a shame that there are no agents or producers out there (that I know of) that have the "guts" to take it on! So, I am also including my screenplay, Joseph Sheridan LeFanu’s CARMILLA, here as well. I hope you enjoy it.

For now, enjoy what's here, & join in the world of the "living dead" (as popular literature likes to call it).

E. F. Benson	...1912...	The Room in the Tower
Lord Byron	...1816...	Fragment of a Novel
F. Marion Crawford	...1911...	For the Blood is the Life
A. Conan Doyle	...1924...	...The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire...
John Keats	...1819...	Lamia: Part 1
John Keats	...1819...	Lamia: Part 2
...Joseph Sheridan LeFanu...	...1872...	Carmilla
Edgar Allan Poe	...1850...	Morella
Edgar Allan Poe	...1843...	The Sleeper
John Polidori	...1819...	The Vampyre
Thomas Preskett Prest	...1847...	Varney the Vampyre
Bram Stoker	...1897...	Dracula
Bram Stoker	...1914...	Dracula's Guest

...R S Cartwright...	...1995...	...Joseph Sheridan LeFanu's CARMILLA...

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