Description
Armed only with a crucifix, a wooden stake, a bottle of holy water, and a rope of garlic, the vampire hunter ventures into the gruesone world of the undead to attempt the inpossible - ending the existence of those who have already died. Although the figure of the vampire has dominated the genre of horror fiction since its first incarnation in nineteenth-century melodrama, vampire hunters are immortal in their own right as the vampire's ultimate nemesis. Never before published in the United States, this chilling collection of fourteen stories shifts the traditional focus of vampire literature from the hunted to the hunter. The Vampire Hunters' Casebook is prefaced with an excerpt from the archetypal vampire hunter, Dracula's Professor Van Helsing, who mysteriously reappears in several of the selections. The collection incudes a range of tales, from Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla," written more than a quarter of a century before Bram Stoker's Dracula, to offerings by such contemporary masters of horror fiction as Anne Rice and Robert Bloch. Also included are editor Peter Haining's own "The Beefsteak Room," and Peter Tremayne's eerie tale written especially for this anthology, "My Name Upon the Wind," which finds Van Helsing transplanted to present-day Ireland. The Vampire Hunters Casebook's singular approach to vampire lore will sweep its readers along on a spine-tingling journey of terror beside the ordinary men and women driven to seek out and destroy these hideous creatures of the night.