The Mammoth Book of Dracula

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The Mammoth Book of

DRACULA

Ed by Stephen Jones

Scanned & Proofed by MadMaxAU

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CONTENTS

Introduction: I Bid You Welcome 

Dracula: or The Un-Dead: Prologue 

BRAM STOKER

Dracula’s Library
                                                                         

CHRISTOPHER FOWLER

The Heart of Count Dracula, Descendant of Attila, Scourge of God

 THOMAS LIGOTTI

Daddy’s Little Girl
                                                                       

MANDY SLATER

Conversion 
                                                                                 

RAMSEY CAMPBELL

The Devil is Not Mocked
                                                               

MANLY WADE WELLMAN

Teaserama 
                                                                                 

NANCY KILPATRICK

Blood Freak
                                                                                 

NANCY HOLDER

Zack Phalanx
is
Vlad the Impaler
                                                   

BRIAN LUMLEY

When Greek Meets Greek
                                                             

BASIL COPPER

Coppola’s Dracula
                                                                       

KIM NEWMAN

The Second Time Around 
                                                         

HUGH B. CAVE

Endangered Species 
                                                                   

BRIAN MOONEY

Melancholia
                                                                               

ROBERTA LANNES

Children of the Long Night 
                                                       

LISA MORTON

Mbo
                                                                                           

NICHOLAS ROYLE

The Worst Place in the World
                                                       

PAUL McAULEY

Larry’s Guest
                                                                           

GUY N. SMITH

A Taste of Culture 
                                                                     

JAN EDWARDS

Rudolph
                                                                                     

R. CHETWYND-HAYES

Roadkill
                                                                                     

GRAHAM MASTERTON

Volunteers
                                                                                   

TERRY LAMSLEY

Black Beads 
                                                                             

JOHN GORDON

Your European Son
                                                                     

JOEL LANE

Quality Control 
                                                                       

BRIAN STABLEFORD

Dear Alison
                                                                               

MICHAEL MARSHALL SMITH

Bloodlines
                                                                                   

CONRAD WILLIAMS

Windows of the Soul 
                                                                 

CHRIS MORGAN

Blood of Eden
                                                                             

MIKE CHINN

Dracula Night
                                                                             

CHARLAINE HARRIS

The Last Testament 
                                                                   

BRIAN HODGE

The Last Vampire
                                                                         

PETER CROWTHER

The Lord’s Work
                                                                         

F. PAUL WILSON

Lord of the Undead
                                                                     

JO FLETCHER

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But first, on earth as Vampyre sent,

Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent;

Then ghastly haunt thy native place,

And suck the blood of all thy race;

There from thy daughter, sister, wife,

At midnight drain the stream of life;

Yet loathe the banquet which perforce

Must feed thy livid, living corpse,

Thy victims, ere they yet expire,

Shall know the demon for their sire;

As cursing thee, thou cursing mem,

Thy flowers are withered on the stem.

—LORD BYRON “The Giaour” (1813)

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INTRODUCTION

I Bid You Welcome

DO WE REALLY need another collection of vampire stories? That is the question I had to ask myself before compiling this present volume. In the past few years, the bookshelves have been groaning under the weight of new vampire fiction. There have been countless novels, collections and anthologies published about every conceivable permutation of the undead and, truth to tell, most of it has been quickly forgettable. However, thanks to the success of Stephenie Meyer’s
Twilight
books and films, along with the TV series
True Blood
(based on the novels by Charlaine Harris), vampires have never been so popular. These days the undead have become a sub-genre in themselves. As my colleague Kim Newman has cleverly remarked elsewhere, vampire fiction has become the
Star Trek
of horror.

When my publisher and I began discussing a follow-up volume to our very successful 1992 anthology,
The Mammoth Book of Vampires,
we agreed that we didn’t want to produce just a second collection of stories. So after careful deliberation, I decided that it might be interesting to see if I could compile a loosely-constructed, “fictionalized history” of the most memorable vampire of them all -Count Dracula. You hold the result in your hands.

Of all the fictional vampires ever created, Dracula continues to endure more than a century after he was created by Bram (Abraham) Stoker. Born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1847, Stoker was a sickly child until he discovered books at around school age. A qualified barrister, his first love was always the theatre, and while working as a civil servant he was introduced to the greatest actor-producer of his time, Henry Irving. The two became friends, and in December 1878 Stoker assumed the acting managership of Irving’s Royal Lyceum Theatre in London, much to the dismay of his family. The same year Stoker married Oscar Wilde’s ex-sweetheart, the Irish-born Florence Anne Lemon Balcombe (whom George du Maurier, author of
Trilby,
described as one of the three most beautiful women he had ever seen).