For almost everyone the idea of having our blood, our life-force, sucked out of us while we sleep is both disturbing and primordially real.

Vampires are a popular tool of unease from authors down the decades. They come in all shapes and sizes, both male and female and for much of their time interact with everyday people as kind and helpful neighbours, not the product of our wildest fears.

In this volume we can offer little in the way of comfort, but we can offer chilling fear so that the next time you want to fall asleep you may want to stay awake a little longer.

The Vampyre. A Tale by John William Polidori

Count Magnus by M R James

Mrs Amworth by E F Benson

The Black Vampyre by Uriah Derick D''Arcy

The Last of the Vampires by Phil Robinson

Vampirismus or Aurelia by E T A Hoffman

The Room in the Tower by E F Benson

The Vampire Maid by Hume Nisbet

The Horror of Abbot''s Grange by Frederick Cowles

The Vampire by Jan Neruda

Wake Not the Dead by Ernst Raupach

Alymer Vance and the Vampire by Alice and Claude Askew

For the Blood is the Life by F Marion Crawford