The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories

Rating:
Summary: Simply the best vampire anthology in print
Review: This is without question the best collection of vampire fiction currently in print. Editor Ryan has done a fantastic job of selecting stories that illustrate the wide historical and thematic range of vampire stories. The introduction and brief comments that introduce each story are concise and insightful. (my favorite story--M.R.R. James' "An Episode of Cathedral History." It still gives me the shivers! If you want an introduction to vampire literature, this book would be your best starting point.

Rating:
Summary: Aunt Wendy bought a book like this one for Sarah
Review: This isn't the exact same book that Aunt Wendy bought for Sarah, my friend in Baltimore, but it's close. They dont have the one she has on here, so I chose to review this one which has lots of stories, both helpful and scary too.
The one Sarah has is very good, because the writing is terrible. Its tragic, really. But its so much fun to read. The guy who wrote it clearly hates women. Which is pretty cool. Because a lot of times I do too. Especially some of the ones I work with. More about that later.
Back to vampires... they're super scary because of the immortality and the blood sucking. I dont want to give too much away. Just buy this book, or better yet, the one that Aunt Wendy sent to Sarah!

Rating:
Summary: Aunt Wendy bought a book like this one for Sarah
Review: This isn't the exact same book that Aunt Wendy bought for Sarah, my friend in Baltimore, but it's close. They dont have the one she has on here, so I chose to review this one which has lots of stories, both helpful and scary too.
The one Sarah has is very good, because the writing is terrible. Its tragic, really. But its so much fun to read. The guy who wrote it clearly hates women. Which is pretty cool. Because a lot of times I do too. Especially some of the ones I work with. More about that later.
Back to vampires... they're super scary because of the immortality and the blood sucking. I dont want to give too much away. Just buy this book, or better yet, the one that Aunt Wendy sent to Sarah!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent starting platform for traditional vampire fiction
Review: This was one of several anthologies I picked up in an effort to accumulate much of the early English-language vampire fiction written. This book is excellent, not limiting itself to extremely short stories, but not excluding them either. Because it is trying to cover a broad spectrum it does include many well-known stories which will already be familiar to the accomplished vampire-reader. But it also includes old-fashioned stories of "poor quality" which were written to be mainly sensationalist, but which ended up adding their flavour to many subsequent vampire stories, and other shorts which are usually only mentioned in other books and not reprinted.
Instead of lowering the quality of the book, to me this heightens the experience of discovering vampiric stories. While probably not interesting for fans of modern vampire stories in which the vampire is the central character and the reader is expected to enjoy the vampire's lusts along with it, this book is an excellent place to start reading the stories which have introduced and shaped Western society's concept of vampires and vampirism.