The Black Book of the Werewolf: 32 Stories of Bestial Terror (a Horror Anthology of Werewolves, Lycanthropy, and Demonic Possession)

This huge collection of 32 gruesome and brilliant werewolf short stories and novellas (over 500 printed pages) represent some of the best of the 19th and early 20th century, when the werewolf was at its full height of terror. The Werewolf's bestial ferocity, superhuman strength, sadistic cruelty, and ravenous hunger make him the very epitome of supernatural terror.

The legends surrounding the werewolf can be traced back to the earliest records of civilization. In folklore the werewolf is depicted as the embodiment of evil and has dominated above all creatures as the most treacherous, savage, and demonic slaves of Satans.

The werewolf theme in fiction was introduced by Marie de France in her 13th century romance "Lais of the Bisclavret". Though common in folklore the werewolf doesn't make a major reappearance in fiction until the19th century with the Gothic novel, whose writers drew inspiration from the gruesome legends and folkore of ancient and middle ages, such as "Hugues, the Wer-Wolf" (1839) by Sutherland Menzies, and "The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains" (1839) by Frederick Marryat, whose villian featues a demonic female, with an insatiable appetite for human male flesh.

The late 19th and early 20th century saw an explosion of werewolf short stories and novels, including "The Eyes of the Panther" (1891) by famed occultist Ambrose Bierce and the famed English occult story writer Algernon Blackwood, who wrote a number of werewolf stories, such as "Running Wolf" (1921). A seductive female who transforms into a werewolf and devours her male victims also make an appearane in Clemence Houseman's acclaimed novella "The Were-wolf" (1896).

Also included is "A True Discourse Declaring the Damnable Life and Death of One Stubbe Peeter", written in 1590. Stubbe (died 1589) was a German farmer and alleged serial killer and cannibal, also known as the "Werewolf of Bedburg". He confessed to killing and eating fourteen children, two pregnant women, and their fetuses. One of the children was his own son, whose brain he was reported to have devoured. In addition to this he confessed to having had intercourse with a succubus sent to him by the Devil.

Table of Contents

Bisclavret (The Lais of the Werewolf) by Marie de France 1170
Stubbe Peeter by Anonymous 1590
The Severed Arm by Anonymous 1820
Hugues, The Wer-Wolf by Sutherland Menzies 1838
The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains by Frederick Marryat 1839
Jean Grenier, A French Werewolf by Sabine Baring-Gould 1865
Monare by Mrs. Richard S. Greenough 1872
Bound by a Spell by The Hon. Mrs Greene 1885
The Wolf by Guy De Maupassant 1887
The White Wolf of Kostopchin by Sir Gilbert Campbell 1889
The Mark of the Beast by Rudyard Kipling 1891
The Eyes of the Panther by Ambrose Bierce 1891
The Other Side by Count Eric Stenbock 1893
The Were-Wolf by Clemence Housman 1896
The Werwolves by Henry Beaugrand 1898
The Gray Cat by Barry Pain 1901
Where There Is Nothing, There Is God by W. B. Yeats 1903
Amina by Edward Lucas White 1906
The Camp of the Dog by Algernon Blackwood 1908
The Gray Wolf by George MacDonald 1909
Gabriel-Ernest by Saki (H.H. Munro) 1910
She-Wolf by Saki (H.H. Munro) 1910
The Werewolf by Eugene Field 1911
The Thing in the Forest by Bernard Capes 1915
The White Dog by Feodor Sologub 1915
He of the Hairy Face by Sir Hugh Clifford 1916
The Were-Tiger by Sir Hugh Clifford 1916
Running Wolf by Algernon Blackwood 1921
The Hidden Beast by J. D. Beresford 1921
The Voice in the Night by W. J. Wintle 1921
Lady Into Fox by David Garnett 1922
The Fox Woman by Abraham Merritt 1922