VINCENT O'SULLIVAN

Here are ruined castles, abbeys and crypts, spires and bats silhouetted against full moons, sharp-toothed men in full evening dress seducing beautiful, innocent young women, coffin lids being raised to reveal unspeakable residents. But the classic vampire of gothic tradition is not the only fiend to stalk the thousand pages of this vast collection. Vampires come in many guises, and all can be found within: reluctant vampires, detective vampires, space vampires, lesbian vampires, punk vampires. There are stories here by men and women from every literary era of the past century and a half, right up to the most talented writers of the present day. The Vampire Archives is the biggest, hungriest, undeadliest collection of vampire stories, as well as the most comprehensive bibliography of vampire fiction ever assembled. Dark, stormy, and delicious, once it sinks its teeth into you there's no escape. Vampires! Whether imagined by BramStroker or Anne Rice, they are part of the human lexicon and as old as blood itself. They are your neighbors, your friends, and they are always lurking. Now Otto Penzler - editor of the bestselling Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps - has compiled the darkest, the scariest, and by far the most evil collection of vampire stories ever. With over eighty stories, including the works of Stephen King and D. H. Lawrence, alongside Lord Byron and Tanith Lee, not to mention Edgar Allan Poe and Harlan Ellison, The Vampire Archives will drive a stake through the heart of any other collection out there.

The Stories Chosen for This Year's Anthology

Beyond the Door by Philip K Dick [Black Cat]( by Edgar Allen Poe The Boarded Window by Ambrose Bierce [A Case of Identity]( by Arthur Conan Doyle Caught On The Ebb-Tide by Edward P. Roe Charon by Lord Dunsany The Cobbler Astrologer by Charles John Tibbitts [The Facts In The Case of M. Valdemar]( by Edgar Allen Poe The Girl at the Switchboard by William Nelson Taft How The Office Of Postman Fell Vacant In Otford-Under-The-Wold Lord Dunsany Madame Versay by Melville Davisson Post Mrs. Dennison’s Head by Dod Grile Plato: The Story of a Cat by A. S. Downs The Sending of Dana Da by Rudyard Kipling The Sphinx at Gizeh by Lord Dunsany The Stone by Henry Goodman An Unexpected Result by Edward P. Roe An Unfinished Race by Ambrose Bierce The Wasted Gift by anonymous When I was Dead by Vincent O'Sullivan

Judge's house / Bram Stoker -- Upper berth / F. Marion Crawford -- Narrative of the Ghost of a hand / J. Sheridan Le Fanu -- To be taken with a grain of salt / Charles Dickens -- Tell-tale heart / Edgar Allan Poe -- Gabriel-Ernest / Saki -- Furnished room / O. Henry -- My own true ghost story / Rudyard Kipling -- Lost hearts / M.R. James -- Called / P.C. Wren -- Who knows? / Guy de Maupassant -- When I was dead / Vincent O'Sullivan -- Face / E.F. Benson -- Open window / Saki.