Free Vampire Books Online
Your pocket-library for the public domain undead.
The classics are here, but I dedicate this page to those fallen by the wayside, the outliers and the Weird Tales. Expect vampire counts, countesses, plants, and...a pipe.
How to use this
Scroll down, see the gallery and click a button to start reading. I provide estimated read times so you can choose something that fits your window. I also divide longer texts into multiple parts, five chapters per page with anchor-links to individual chapters. Each card has a set of metadata that goes as follows: Title, Author or Publication, year of release, location of release, estimated read-time and word-count. These are self-explanatory, however below the links are several numerical parameters. This metadata is not central to your reading experience, and is largely for the enjoyment of nerds. These strange outputs are defined as such:
| Formula Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Ure | The lexical density of a text. |
| Yule | The lexical diversity of a text. |
| Hapax | The lexical uniqueness of a text. |
| Gunning fog | The readability of a text. |
How much time you got?
A Blood Sucking Ghost
The Sedalia Weekly Bazoo | 1892 | Missouri | 2 mins/392 wds
An article about a group of Bohemian villagers excavating and staking the corpse of a suspected vampire.
50% (Ure) | 187 (Yule) | 42% (Hapax) | 14.7 (FOG)
A Horrible Superstition
Unknown | The Ipswich Journal | 1872 | England | 2 minutes
An article about a group of Peacedale villagers excavating and staking the corpse of a suspected vampire.
A Living Vampire
Dudley Wright | 1910 | England | 5 minutes
An article about a reported vampire sighting in an Anglo-Indian colony.
A Modern Vampyre
Unknown | Green-Mountain Freeman | 1850 | Vermont | 10 minutes
An article that argues vampire hysteria is the result of untreated mental illness rather than supernatural reality.
An Irish Vampire
R.S. Breene | 1925 | 7 minutes
A rural Irish family encounters a recently-buried priest with unmistakable signs of vampirism.
A Vampire Legend
Alfred Fellows | 1908 | 7 minutes
An article exploring vampire legends as symbolic attempts to explain evil, death, and human misfortune.
A Rhode Island Superstition
Unknown | 1892 | 3 minutes
An article that discusses the Rhode-Island belief that tuberculosis deaths are caused by vampires.
A Slayer of Vampires
Unknown | 1918 | 2 minutes
A Macedonian man quells nearby vampires, much to the derision and disbelief of a shopkeeper.
An Authenticated Vampire Story
Franz Hartmann | 1909 | 9 minutes
A remote Carpathian castle becomes associated with an alleged vampire after a series of sudden deaths.
Aylmer Vance and the Vampire
Alice and Claude Askew | 1914 | 33 minutes
A wealthy man falls ill and consults a psychic, who reveals that a vampiric force has bound itself to his wife.
Bat's Belfry
August William Derleth | 1926 | 14 minutes
A lord discovers an occult book in his manor and inadvertently summons the undead.
Believe in Vampires
Unknown | Boston Daily Globe | 1896 | 11 minutes
A satirical article that mocks vampire superstition among rural Rhode Islanders.
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.
Dracula
Bram Stoker | 1897 | 11 hours 13 minutes
Various people chronicle the arrival of a mysterious 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
A young woman enters the employ of a mysterious aristocrat after the untimely deaths of her predecessors.
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.
Pepopukin in Corsica
Unknown | 1826 | 41 minutes
A knight seeks to marry a noblewoman, only for his rivals to torment him with vampire-themed pranks.
Rhode Island Fears Vampires
Unknown | The Times | 1896 | 6 minutes
An article about enduring vampire superstitions in Rhode Island and how they affect local burial practices.
Spectres Called Vampyres
Unknown | The Hartford Courant | 1765 | 3 minutes
An article about the existence of vampires in Eastern Europe, reported sightings and methods of destruction.
Superstitions of New England
Unknown | 1822 | 3 minutes
A family exhumes their deceased daughter after suspecting she's risen as a vampire to drain her brother.
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 Last of the Vampires
Phil Robinson | The Contemporary Review 63 | 1893 | 12 minutes
Skeletons found in the Amazon Basin attest to a fatal confrontation between a man and a reptilian vampire.
The Mysterious Stranger
Anonymous author | 1860 | 1 hour 5 minutes
A party of travellers in the Carpathians encounters a seemingly helpful stranger, secretly a vampire.
The Phantom World
Augustin Calmet | 1746 | 1 hour 58 minutes
All relevant vampire chapters from his treatise of supernatural phenomena.
The Problem of the Vampire
Ralph Shirley | 1924 | 16 minutes
An article that explores and theorises about different explanations for alleged vampire activity.
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 Skeleton Count
Elizabeth Caroline Grey | 1828 | 31 minutes
A count makes a pact with dark forces to resurrect a woman from the dead, transforming her into a vampiress.
The Tomb of Sarah
F.G. Loring | 1900 | 22 minutes
A rector and a church restorer set to vanquish a vampire Countess and free their village from her presence.
The Transfer
Algernon Blackwood | 1912 | 18 minutes
A governess feels suspicious of an overbearing uncle, a metaphorical 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 Unholy Compact Abjured
Charles Pigault-Lebrun | 1825 | 6 minutes
A young soldier resists the temptations of witchcraft and undeath through his Christian faith.
The Vampire, His Kith and Kin
Montague Summers | 1928 | 10 hours 16 minutes
The progenitor of many a vampire history text, by a sincere believer of the undead.
The Vampire Legend
James Spence | 1918 | 16 minutes
An article about vampires as a universal response to disease and guilt surrounding the dead.
The Vampire Maid
Hume Nisbet | 1900 | 13 minutes
A man stays in an English country house, only to find himself stalked by its vampiric maid.
The Vampire of Croglin Grange
Augustus Hare | 1896 | 7 minutes
A family in Cumberland suffer an attack from an ancestral vampire.
The Vampire Superstition
Vere D. Shortt | 1915 | 11 minutes
An article about the decline of vampire belief as a result of increased education about burial practices.
The Vampyre
John William Polidori | 1819 | 34 minutes
During his travels a young nobleman unknowingly befriends a vampire and becomes his latest victim.
Vampire and Bruxa
Frank Belknap Long | 1874 | 17 minutes
An article contrasting the decline of vampire belief with the continued persistence of belief in the Evil Eye.
Vampire of Lakeview
Unknown | 1888 | 7 minutes
An alleged vampire menaces Chicago, causing widespread hysteria in a modern city.
Vampires
Franz Hartmann | 1908 | 7 minutes
An article arguing that vampirism is innate human capacity rather than literal undeath.
Vampires
Reginald Hodder | 1914 | 7 minutes
An article arguing that vampirism exists in ways subtler than imagined.
Vampires and Ghouls
Unknown | Appletons' Journal | 1871 | 7 minutes
An article arguging vampire beliefs are products of superstition, ignorance and mental illness.
Vampires and Vampirism
Owen Prothero | The Occult Review | 1909 | 2 hours 18 minutes
An article that theorises about the reality of vampirism and advises a cautious approach to alleged sightings.
Vampires and Vampirism
Dudley Wright | 1914 | 2 hours 18 minutes
A collection of vampire lore from around the world.
Vampirism in Rhode Island
J. Earl Clauson | 1937 | 2 hours 18 minutes
An article about tuberculosis and its attribution to vampirism, despite growing medical knowledge.
Vampyres
Unknown | Harper's New Monthly Magazine | 1854 | N/A minutes
An article about the evolution of vampire folklore and its translation into popular literature.
Vanquishing a Vampire
C. H. M. | 1928 | 2 minutes
An occultist allegedly dispels an alleged vampire, advising that magic serve the good of others.
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 | 14 minutes
A nobleman discovers he's been turned into a vampire, and struggles to cope.
Weird Tales: 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.
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
A group of mediecal students desecrate a grave as a prank, only to uncover a vampire.
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
A man meets an old woman, once beautiful yet still alluring due to a mysterious hypnotic fan.
Weird Tales: The Hills of the Dead
Robert E. Howard | 1930 | 31 minutes
A Puritan adventurer and a voodoo sorcerer plan to destroy a race of African vampires haunting a hillside city.
Weird Tales: The Ocean Leech
Frank Belknap Long | 1925 | 17 minutes
A group of sailors attempts to fight off a grotesque vampiric cephalopod.
Weird Tales: The Wolf Woman
Bassett Morgan | 1927 | 34 minutes
A group of scientists unknowingly resurrect a fearsome vampire huntress and her loyal wolves.