No season lends its atmosphere to reading quite like autumn does. Gray skies quickly give way to night, a chill finds its way through windows thought to be shut tight, and a sense that something may lurk just beyond our sight persists. It’s a season for all that is rich, foreboding, and decadent; a time for stories that send shivers down your spine and rekindle a fear of the dark you thought had long since burned out.
It’s a time for vampire stories.
Once Dracula, the ultimate vampire classic, has been read, turn to these books.
Must-Read Vampire Books
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Carmilla
by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
In an isolated castle deep in the Austrian forest, teenaged Laura leads a solitary life with only her father, attendant and tutor for company. Until one moonlit night, a horse-drawn carriage crashes into view, carrying an unexpected guest—the beautiful Carmilla.
So begins a feverish friendship between Laura and her entrancing new companion, one defined by mysterious happenings and infused with an implicit but undeniable eroticism. As Carmilla becomes increasingly strange and volatile, prone to eerie nocturnal wanderings, Laura finds herself tormented by nightmares and growing weaker by the day.
Dracula’s Guest and Other Weird Stories
by Bram Stoker
Dracula’s Guest (1914) is a collection of short stories by Irish author Bram Stoker. Edited and published by Florence, the author’s wife, following Stoker’s death only two years prior, Dracula’s Guest helped to establish the Irish master of Gothic horror’s reputation as a leading writer of the early-twentieth century.
In “Dracula’s Guest,” an unnamed Englishman journeys by carriage into the countryside from his hotel in Munich to take in some of the local scenery. On the journey, his driver warns him of the dangers of Walpurgis Night only hours away, a time in which demons and ghosts are rumored to roam the land. Stopping near an abandoned village, the Englishman ignores his driver’s unease and, sending the carriage back to Munich, makes his way into the hills alone. Lost in the dark, a sudden appearance of moonlight reveals his eerie surroundings―a dark and dreary cemetery. As a storm abruptly begins, he takes shelter in the doorway of a tomb, accidentally disturbing the entrance to reveal, at its center, the body of a beautiful, sleeping woman. In “The Judge’s House,” a scholar on holiday in a seaside town spends the night in a mysterious home, despite the warnings of locals who beg him not to stay at such a place. Dracula’s Guest compiles nine works of short fiction by Bram Stoker, the secretive and vastly underrated creator of Dracula, one of history’s greatest villains.
A Dowry of Blood
by S.T. Gibson
This is my last love letter to you, though some would call it a confession. . .
Saved from the brink of death by a mysterious stranger, Constanta is transformed from a medieval peasant into a bride fit for an undying king. But when Dracula draws a cunning aristocrat and a starving artist into his web of passion and deceit, Constanta realizes that her beloved is capable of terrible things.
Finding comfort in the arms of her rival consorts, she begins to unravel their husband’s dark secrets. With the lives of everyone she loves on the line, Constanta will have to choose between her own freedom and her love for her husband. But bonds forged by blood can only be broken by death.
Dracul
by Dacre Stoker and J.D. Barker
The prequel to Dracula, inspired by notes and texts left behind by the author of the classic novel, Dracul is a supernatural thriller that reveals not only Dracula’s true origins but Bram Stoker’s–and the tale of the enigmatic woman who connects them.
It is 1868, and a twenty-one-year-old Bram Stoker waits in a desolate tower to face an indescribable evil. Armed only with crucifixes, holy water, and a rifle, he prays to survive a single night, the longest of his life. Desperate to record what he has witnessed, Bram scribbles down the events that led him here…
A sickly child, Bram spent his early days bedridden in his parents’ Dublin home, tended to by his caretaker, a young woman named Ellen Crone. When a string of strange deaths occur in a nearby town, Bram and his sister Matilda detect a pattern of bizarre behavior by Ellen–a mystery that deepens chillingly until Ellen vanishes suddenly from their lives. Years later, Matilda returns from studying in Paris to tell Bram the news that she has seen Ellen–and that the nightmare they’ve thought long ended is only beginning.
Interview with the Vampire
by Anne Rice
Here are the confessions of a vampire. Hypnotic, shocking, and chillingly sensual, this is a novel of mesmerizing beauty and astonishing force—a story of danger and flight, of love and loss, of suspense and resolution, and of the extraordinary power of the senses. It is a novel only Anne Rice could write.
The Historian
by Elizabeth Kostova
To you, perceptive reader, I bequeath my history….Late one night, exploring her father’s library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters. The letters are all addressed to “My dear and unfortunate successor,” and they plunge her into a world she never dreamed of, a labyrinth where the secrets of her father’s past and her mother’s mysterious fate connect to an inconceivable evil hidden in the depths of history.
The letters provide links to one of the darkest powers that humanity has ever known and to a centuries-long quest to find the source of that darkness and wipe it out. It is a quest for the truth about Vlad the Impaler, the medieval ruler whose barbarous reign formed the basis of the legend of Dracula. Generations of historians have risked their reputations, their sanity, and even their lives to learn the truth about Vlad the Impaler and Dracula. Now one young woman must decide whether to take up this quest herself–to follow her father in a hunt that nearly brought him to ruin years ago, when he was a vibrant young scholar and her mother was still alive. What does the legend of Vlad the Impaler have to do with the modern world? Is it possible that the Dracula of myth truly existed and that he has lived on, century after century, pursuing his own unknowable ends? The answers to these questions cross time and borders, as first the father and then the daughter search for clues, from dusty Ivy League libraries to Istanbul, Budapest, and the depths of Eastern Europe. In city after city, in monasteries and archives, in letters and in secret conversations, the horrible truth emerges about Vlad the Impaler’s dark reign and about a time-defying pact that may have kept his awful work alive down through the ages.
‘Salem’s Lot
by Stephen King
Ben Mears has returned to Jerusalem’s Lot in hopes that exploring the history of the Marsten House, an old mansion long the subject of rumor and speculation, will help him cast out his personal devils and provide inspiration for his new book.
But when two young boys venture into the woods, and only one returns alive, Mears begins to realize that something sinister is at work.
In fact, his hometown is under siege from forces of darkness far beyond his imagination. And only he, with a small group of allies, can hope to contain the evil that is growing within the borders of this small New England town.
With this, his second novel, Stephen King established himself as an indisputable master of American horror, able to transform the old conceits of the genre into something fresh and all the more frightening for taking place in a familiar, idyllic locale.
Vlad: The Last Confession
by C.C. Humphreys
Dracula. A name of horror, depravity and the darkest sensuality. Yet the real Dracula was just as alluring, just as terrifying, his tale not one of a monster but of a man…and a contradiction.
His tale is told by those who knew him best. The only woman he ever loved…and whom he has to sacrifice. His closest comrade… and traitor. And his priest, betraying the secrets of the confessional to reveal the mind of the man history would forever remember as The Impaler.
This is the story of the man behind the legend … as it has never been told before.
“Trust nothing that you’ve heard.”
Winter 1431, a son is born to the Prince of Transylvania.
His father christened him “Vlad.”
His people knew him as “The Dragon’s Son.”
His enemies reviled him as “Tepes”―The Impaler.
He became the hero of a nation.
We know him as Dracula.
The Pale Lady
by Alexandre Dumas
The Pale Lady is a gripping vampire tale following Hedwig, a Polish lady, who is sent to a monastery in the Carpathian Mountains for safety. She draws the attention of two very different brothers and soon finds herself in more danger than ever before. A supernatural story featuring creepy castles, misty monasteries, and tragic romance.
From the remarkable author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, The Pale Lady has been translated from the original French and is the perfect dark read for fans of horror and the supernatural.
The Vampyre
by John Polidori
Note: It’s very difficult to find an edition of The Vampyre by itself. This collection is the best I could find.
John Polidori’s classic tale “The Vampyre”(1819), was a product of the same ghost-story competition that produced Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The present volume selects thirteen other tales of mystery and the macabre, including the works of James Hogg, J.S. LeFanu, Letitia Landon, Edward Bulwer, and William Carelton. The introduction surveys the genesis and influence of “The Vampyre” and its central themes and techniques, while the Appendices contain material closely associated with its composition and publication, including Lord Byron’s prose fragment “Augustus Darvell.”
Are any of these vampire books on your TBR?