In Blood Thirst: One Hundred Years of Vampire Fiction, Leonard Wolf gathers thirty tales in which vampires of all varieties make their ghastly presence felt. From Lafcadio Hearn, Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman, Edith Wharton, August Derleth, and Ray Bradbury to such contemporary masters as Anne Rice, Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, John Cheever, and Woody Allen, and in settings as diverse as rural New England and outer space, this collection offers readers a blood-curling compendium of the best vampire fiction since the publication of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Organized into six categories--The Classic Adventure Tale, The Psychic Vampire, The Science Fiction Vampire, The Non-Human Vampire, The Comic Vampire, and The Heroic Vampire--the collection illustrates how the vampire's ability to draw into itself such a richness of symbolic meanings may account for the enduring appeal of the literature written about it. Here, then, is the definitive collection for aficionados and novices alike to sink their teeth into.