Vampire Books Online
Your pocket-library for the public domain undead.
Scroll down, see the gallery and click a button to start reading. I provide authors, dates and estimated read times so you can choose something that fits your window. To do the latter, I use thereadtime.com and set it to the average Words-Per-Minute. I divide longer texts into multiple parts, five chapters per page with plenty of anchor-links to select individual chapters.
Disclaimers
- I censor nothing
- All works appear on this site without commentary or censorship. These books reflect period-typical attitudes toward ethnicity, national identity, and sexual politics. For that reason, the site provides no content warnings.
- I feature any kind of Vampire
- The criteria for what defines a vampire is generous. Any kind of murderous hemophage is welcome, as with psychic, tantric (sexual vampires that play on the concept of sperm as a sort of life-force) and energy vampires.
- This adheres to U.S. law
- Because this site uses a U.S.-based host, I follow its copyright laws. In the United States, many works enter the public domain after 95 years, though for works published between 1923 and 1963 this varies. Some copyright holders renew their rights and thus extend legal protection. However, exceptions exist. For example, Dracula entered the public domain in 1923. In contrast, the United Kingdom saw it enter the public domain sixty years later.
Section Menu
Upcoming releases
1931 (Coming 2027)
- A Rendezvous in Averoigne by Clark Ashton Smith
- The Undead by Amelia Reynolds Long
- Satan’s Circus by Eleanor Smith
- Placide’s Wife by Kirk Mashburn
1932 (Coming 2028)
- Those Who Seek by August Derleth
- The Vrykolakas by Robert C. Sandison
- The Horror from the Mound by Robert E. Howard
- The Last of Placide’s Wife by W. K. Mashburn
- Vampire Village by Edmond Hamilton
- The Brotherhood of Blood by Hugh B. Cave
- The Dark Castle by Marion Brandon
1932 (Coming 2028)
- Those Who Seek by August Derleth
- Vampire Village by Edmond Hamilton
- The Brotherhood of Blood by Hugh B. Cave
- The Horror from the Mound by Robert E. Howard
- The Dark Castle by Marion Brandon
1933 (Coming 2029)
- The Vampire Master by Edmond Hamilton
- The Fire Vampires by Donald Wandrei
- The House of Shadows by Hugh B. Cave
- Vampir by Robert E. Howard
- Revelations in Black by Carl Jacobi
- Genius Loci by Clark Ashton Smith
- Nellie Foster by August Derleth
- The Vampire Airplane by Arlton Eadie
- The Seed from the Sepulcher by Clark Ashton Smith
- Shambleau by C. L. Moore
1934 (Coming 2030)
- Black Thirst by Edmond Hamilton
- Vampires of the Moon by Donald Wandrei
- The Graveyard Duchess by John Flanders
1935 (Coming 2031)
- Lord of the Lamia by Otis Adelbert Kline
- The Shambler from the Stars by Robert Bloch
1936 (Coming 2032)
- The Satin Mask by August Derleth
- The Room of Shadows by Arthur J. Burks
- The Horror Undying by Manly Wade Wellman
- Loot of the Vampire by Thorp McClusky
- The Secret of Kralitz by Henry Kuttner
1937 (Coming 2033)
- I, the Vampire by Henry Kuttner
- The Mannikin by Robert Bloch
- School for the Unspeakable by Manly Wade Wellman
- The Death of Ilalotha by Clark Ashton Smith
1939 (Coming 2035)
- The Silver Coffin by Robert Barbour Johnson
- The Drifting Snow by August Derleth
- Hellsgarde by C. L. Moore
- The Spanish Vampire by E. Hoffmann Price
Bat's Belfry
August William Derleth | 1926 | 14 minutes
A lord discovers an occult book in his manor and inadvertently summons the undead.
Carmilla
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu | 1872 | 1 hour 57 minutes
During her stay in a Styrian schloss, a young woman becomes the latest obsession of a vampiress.
Clarimonde
Théophile Gautier | 1836 | 55 minutes
An elderly priest recalls a woman he met on his ordination, his first lover, the vampiress Clarimonde.
Doom of the House of Duryea
Earl Peirce | 1936 | 23 minutes
A man meets his estranged father in a lodge, only to uncover a devastating vampiric curse.
Dracula
Bram Stoker | 1897 | 11 hours 13 minutes
Various men and women chronicle the arrival of a mysterious transylvanian count, and the subsequent death that ensues.
Dracula's Guest
Bram Stoker | 1914 | 20 minutes
A young Englishman, on his way to meet the transylvanian count Dracula, experiences various strange encounters.
For the Blood is the Life
F. Marion Crawford | 1912 | 28 minutes
A vampiric ghost returns to haunt a coastal Italian tower.
Good Lady Ducayne
Mary Elizabeth Braddon | 1896 | 42 minutes
Isle of the Undead
Lloyd Arthur Eshbach | 1936 | 41 minutes
A yacht party fights for their lives on an island of the undead.
Let Loose
Mary Chomondeley | 1890 | 30 minutes
An architect uncovers an evil force in the grounds of a remote Yorkshire village.
Ligeia
Edgar Allan Poe | 1838 | 26 minutes
A widower descends into near-madness attempting to revive his wife.
Luella Miller
Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman | 1903 | 23 minutes
A New England village is plagued by a mysterious woman and the untimely deaths of her carers.
Mrs Amworth
E.F. Benson | 1922 | 25 minutes
Two men find out that their Sussex village is haunted by a vampiress.
Negotium Perambulans
E.F. Benson | 1922 | 25 minutes
A Cornish village suffers an attack from a vampiric force.
The Black Vampyre
Uriah Derick D'Arcy | 1819 | 35 minutes
A mixed-race slave revives as a vampire, and seeks revenge on his captor.
The Blood of the Vampire
Florence Marryat | 1897 | 6 hours 8 minutes
A mixed-race vampiress unknowingly causes the deaths of the people she seeks to flatter.
The Flowering of the Strange Orchid
H.G. Wells | 1894 | 13 minutes
A man buys an exotic orchid that reveals itself to be a vampire.
The Horla
Guy de Maupassant | 1886 | 41 minutes
A man descends into madness, suspecting he is being attacked by a vampire.
The House of the Vampire
George Sylvester Viereck | 1907 | 2 hours 26 minutes
An experienced psychic vampire aims to drain a aspiring writer of his skills and sanity.
The Mysterious Stranger
Anonymous author | 1860 | 1 hour 5 minutes
The Phantom World
Augustin Calmet | 1746 | minutes
All relevant vampire chapters from his treatise of supernatural phenomena.
The Room in the Tower
E.F. Benson | 1912 | 28 minutes
A man stays in a friend's haunted tower, while the mother, a vampiress, lurks and plans to turn him.
The Tomb of Sarah
F.G. Loring | 1900 | 22 minutes
The Transfer
Algernon Blackwood | 1912 | 18 minutes
A governess becomes suspicious of an overbearing uncle, who she likens to a vampire, while a real specimen lurks nearby.
The True Story of a Vampire
Count Stembock | 1894 | 13 minutes
A young woman recalls the loss of her brother at the hands of a charming vampire count.
The Vampire, His Kith and Kin
Montague Summers | 1928 | minutes
The progenitor of many a vampire history text, by a sincere believer of the undead.
The Vampire Maid
Hume Nisbet | 1900 | 13 minutes
A man stays in an english country house, only to become the intended prey of a vampiric maid.
The Vampire of Croglin Grange
Augustus Hare | 1896 | 7 minutes
A family in Cumberland suffer an attack from an ancestral vampire.
The Vampyre
John William Polidori | 1819 | 34 minutes
During his travels in Europe, a young nobleman unknowingly befriends a vampire, and becomes his latest victim.
Vampires and Vampirism
Dudley Wright | 1914 | minutes
A collection of vampire lore from around the world.
Wake not the Dead
Ernst Raupach | 1823 | 58 minutes
A grieving lord uses dark magics to revive his wife, only to be met with the horrors of playing God.
Weird Tales: Cross of Fire
Lester del Rey | 1939 | 13 minutes
A nobleman discovers he's been turned into a vampire, and struggles to cope.
Weird Tales: Four Wooden Stakes
Victor Roman | 1925 | 23 minutes
After a string of killings, two men set out to slay their culprit, a vampire.
Weird Tales: Return of the Undead
Otis Adelbert Kline and Frank Belknap Long | 1943 | 32 minutes
Weird Tales: Return to Death
J. Wesley Rosenquest | 1936 | 9 minutes
A Transylvanian scientist becomes trapped in a state of suspended animation and is mistaken for a vampire.
Weird Tales: The Fan
Frank Owen | 1925 | 7 minutes